Surviving the Marquesas, Episode 2: Stereotypes Galore

Before we start, I wanted to point out that I made a mistake in earlier statements about this version of Survivor (yes, I know that’s hard to believe). I had been saying that these contestants were already on the island when the “switch” episode of Survivor: Africa aired, and thus they likely had no idea what Mark Burnett might throw at them. I was almost correct. They were, in fact, in Tahiti. But they were not on the island yet. According to an article on TV Guide Online, Burnett said they saw the “switch” episode on TV their final night before heading out to the island, and he warned them to be ready for anything. So whatever switch might happen, they will be more prepared for it than the folks in Africa were. Mind you, this has nothing to do with this episode, but I figured I should correct it now before I forget.

Moving into episode 2, I have to ask: What is it about Survivor that brings out the stereotypes? There’s a bossy older woman in both tribes. The African-American basketball coach is viewed as lazy. The younger woman is also lazy. Etc. Sure, some of it is editing, but if the others weren’t complaining about these types of behavior on the part of the players, there would be nothing to edit and nothing for us to see. Do these people learn anything from the previous series? Sheesh.

We open with another good Snickers commercial that again integrates clips from previous shows. This one features the Survivor 1 and 2 casts eating bugs from the disgusting food immunity challenges. Then the announcer says, “Forgetting that bugs are… bugs. Another side effect of hunger.” I have to say, I like the Snickers tie-in commercials more than any of the previous ones.

Enough of that, though, what happened in this episode? On the third night, while Maraamu was busy voting out holey Peter, Rotu was forming a back massage line. Gabriel says he loves being in this tribe – they interact in positive ways. Well, all except Kathy, who is not trying to be one of them. They all sleep in their mini-shelter. She sleeps by the fire. The next day, this theme continues. The group is almost all together doing various things, except Kathy, who is out looking for food by the rocks in the water. Actually, she says, she is looking for credibility. She thinks certain things should be done and figures if she brings food, they’ll listen to her.

Robert, meanwhile, is sick and struggling a bit. He’s a big guy and is affected the most by the lack of food, so he’s not able to help much. However, since nobody complains about him being lazy, they seem to understand his circumstances (in contrast to Ramona from the first series, who was sick but viewed as lazy because of it). In part to help him, and in part just to help themselves, they decide they’re going to do some hunting. They create different weapons, including fishhooks, spears, shrimp catcher, and even a pig snare. John is very pleased with himself for the snare.

John ends up catching a shrimp and suddenly thinks of himself as the food provider. Um, John, it’s one shrimp. We’re not talking Mike the pig-killer here. But he thinks providing food will elevate himself in the tribe. Hmmm. A gay man who wants to provide food so he can stick around longer. Where have we seen that before? (No, I’m not talking about Mike.) Yet another Survivor stereotype?

Ah, but his efforts are stymied when Kathy – also looking to elevate herself – actually finds more than one shellfish. She calls over the crew to show them how to find the mussel-like shells under rocks, but John finds her borderline abrasive and a bit condescending. For that matter, so do many of the others. Mind you, John has other reasons to be upset – as he notes, he’s happy to have protein but wishes he’d been the one to find it.

Kathy still isn’t happy, though. For all her hard work, she got no thanks whatsoever. “I’m not that hard to get along with,” she whines. Well, maybe yes, maybe no. Right now, from what I’ve seen, I’d have to go with “yes you are.”

Over in Maraamu, the morning begins with their own radio show hosted by Sean, Rob, and Hunter. There’s singing and dancing and comic relief before they start pulling out the knives to stab at each other for the rest of the day. Patricia has come out of her shell and is now known as “Mama.” Hunter says that even though she is the oldest, she’s also one of the strongest. Gina notes that Mama is working hard and is more comfortable now than she was in the first three days.

In fact, she’s working too hard. While Kathy is annoying folks in Rotu, Patricia is taking on the job in Maraamu. She thinks she has to spur people into action to do work. Hunter says she has some good ideas, but she likes to nag. Sean just says she’s doing too much talking while Vecepia says she’s too controlling. “Quite frankly,” Sean adds, “I’m getting sick of it.” It only gets worse as the days go by, when she starts dictating that certain trees are only to be used to put down specific tools, which must always be replaced in their spots. Jeez, woman, lighten up!

But Sean and Vecepia are not only united in their annoyance with Patricia. Sean says they have a common bond – which would be their skin color and culture. They are also bound by Christ, according to Sean.

Whatever bonds there might be, there sure isn’t one between Hunter and Sean. Hunter indicates that Sean isn’t pulling his weight. Gina flat-out says he’s lazy. For his part, Sean says he just “ain’t kissing nobody’s butt” by trying to impress Hunter. If Sean thinks there needs to be work done, he’ll do it. Otherwise…Well, that’ll endear him to the rest of the tribe.

But there’s plenty of time for that – others are also getting on their nerves. The Rob & Sarah couple, for instance, is another annoyance for Hunter. Sarah pulls Rob away from his duties, Hunter says. So if Sarah goes, perhaps they’ll have more help from Rob.

Rob, however, views Sarah as an asset rather than a hindrance (yeah, well, and as a really good piece of asset, indeed). He figures with her, he gets two votes. But he does realize that he has to carry her along and, as he says, he’s playing Survivor for two. For her part, Sarah says she and Rob have more in common than the others, since they are the youngest. She is attracted to Rob and he is attracted to her.

Day 5 dawns on the Rotu tribe, and their pig snare had been triggered. Alas, it worked, but it missed the pig. Still, it gives them hope. Then that hope is dashed as Kathy calls them all together. As Tammy (who? Jeez, I’d forgotten she was even in the game) says, it’s like a mother calling you over and holding a chocolate bar, which she’s only going to give to you if you listen to her first. Kathy plays that role by lecturing the rest of the tribe about the fire and shelter, and noting they each have a roll to play. Gabriel speaks up and tells her that there are things more important in this game than just fire and shelter. He says she should stop going off by herself and get to know people.

Kathy says she’s caught off guard by their response, and Tammy sees tears well up in her eyes. Tammy says they didn’t mean to hurt her and felt bad, so they decide to make Tammy’s priority a group priority, and make a shelter. That’s twice now that Kathy has gotten her way by being totally annoying (the first was the fire). If Kathy were a kid, I’d say they’re just encouraging her bad behavior by giving in that way. Heck, even though she’s not a kid I’ll say that.

Judge Paschal finally appears on camera for more than a second when he brings out his full-sized American flag and has it hung up by the shelter. He says he is extremely patriotic. And then he goes back into hiding from the camera.

The first reward challenge is for fishing gear. Well, not technically – it’s actually a mask, snorkel, and fins. They still have to make their own spears. For the challenge, there are two boats on the ocean floor, weighed down by about 250 rocks in each and tethered to an inner tube. The teams have to get enough rocks out so the boat comes to the surface, then bail it out until they deem it seaworthy, and then row and run it up to the beach. First one back wins.

Rotu sits out Robert, since they have an extra. As it begins, Hunter for Maraamu and Gabriel for Rotu show the best ability to hold their breath and pull out lots of rocks. But eventually Rotu figures out that this isn’t the best way to do it. They send down several players at once to tip the boat and just dump the rocks out. The boat floats up and they get to work on it. Maraamu sees what Rotu did and figures that this may be the way to go. But by that time, Rotu has the lead and never gives it back. Rotu wins the second challenge in a row.

The next day, Vecepia, Patricia, and Sarah are putting together fronds for a shelter roof because it looks like rain. Sarah whines that she’d been saying they need a roof for two days and was ignored, but now that Hunter says it, everybody thinks it’s a great idea. Gina thinks Sarah is all talk and no action, though – just a lot of comments but no work of her own. Indeed, as Sarah goes on and on about it, some of the looks the others give her are priceless.

And we’re back to a challenge again – this one for immunity. And, yes, it is the disgusting food challenge. For this one, I’d swear they just made it up. I mean, the others were at least sort of believable as “local delicacies.” This one is only believable as “local bait.” Host Jeff Probst calls it fafaroo or something like that. It’s made up of a marinade containing fish bones and crab legs that were allowed to rot in seawater for three days before being poured over slices of raw fish and let sit out for several hours. Probst notes that it smells worse than a public toilet on a hot summer day. How appetizing. The flies seem to like it, though.

The format is the same as previous ones. Each tribe member has to down a piece of this stuff (with Hunter going twice because Maraamu is down a person) – although in this particular case they can’t use their hands; they just have to “bob” for it. Everybody manages to choke this stuff down, though Neleh almost pukes and Rob comes even closer (to the point that Probst says to him, “Not on me.”). This makes it easy for the tribes to pick who should go in the tie-breaker, where Neleh and Rob face off and the first to eat a rather large piece of this stuff wins immunity. Both of them once again almost puke, but Neleh manages to gag it down while Rob begins to blow chunks. Rotu wins yet again!

Back at camp, Rob says everybody did their jobs and he blew it. But with Tribal Council coming, people are mostly keeping to themselves.

Sean tells Vecepia that he or Sarah is next from what he heard – Hunter telling Rob that it’s time for Sarah to go. Vecepia says Sarah knows she is a liability, and Rob wonders to himself (and the camera) if he should join with Hunter or Sean if Sarah is voted off. He talks to Sean a bit and says Patricia didn’t contribute and they voted off Peter, which he now thinks might have been a mistake. No, really?

So back to Tribal Council they go. Probst asks Patricia, as Mom, how the tribe is doing. She says they are not 100% productive and could be better. Rob says sometimes Mom can be a pain in the butt, but other times it’s good to have her around. Sarah, though, is not so happy. She says they are all adults and nobody needs to bark at them and tell them what to do. She says her mom hasn’t told her what to do for years. (At this point my wife, who is sort of watching the show with me, chimes in, “Maybe that’s what your problem is.” Ouch!) Sarah continues, saying she works 16 hours a day at home and she didn’t come to duplicate that on the island. She wants to do less work and save her energy for challenges. Gina disagrees strongly, saying if Gina has to pull somebody else’s weight, that just makes her weaker for the challenges and the whole tribe suffers as a result. On a different subject, Rob says that he feels he let the tribe down at the challenge and would not be surprised if he were voted off.

But that is not even an idea in anybody’s head. Who would vote off one of the strongest guys ‘cus he couldn’t choke down disgusting raw fish? Instead, the vote is a close one between Patricia and Sarah, with Sean (who voted against Sarah last time), Vecepia, and the Rob/Sarah combo voting against Patricia, and Patricia, Hunter, and Gina voting against Sarah. Yes, they kicked off Mom.

Probst sends them home, noting that this is “clearly a tribe divided.” Indeed, to me it’s looking a bit like a Samburu repeat. We have the worker bees (Hunter, Gina, and until now Patricia) squared off against those who are perceived as lazy (Sean, Sarah) plus a couple of their younger allies. It’s not as obvious a division as it was last season, but there is definitely something there. They’ve lost all three challenges so far, so unless they’re waiting for a Burnett switch, they’d better kick into high gear or they’ll become extinct even before the merge.

Patricia doesn’t say much of interest in her goodbye speech. She’s proud of the tribe and hopes they do well, yadda yadda yadda.

Next week: For one thing, note that next week’s show is on Wednesday, not Thursday. And as if you couldn’t guess, tensions increase in Maraamu. Plus, there is some pain in Rotu (apparently some injuries, but nothing major – of course, that’s easy for me to say since they didn’t happen to me).

Be sure to sign up for our e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on the site and be registered for giveaways and special offers! You can find all of our articles about this show at the Survivor: Marquesas Page, and take a look at our sections on Reality TV Interviews and Combat Missions. You can even buy reality show stuff at our Reality TV Store!

For even more news about reality TV, be sure to check out RealityTVFans.com, SirLinksALot and the Manly Man!