Surviving the Cook Islands, Episode 2: Three Little Words

Aitu returns to camp and Ozzy admits the obvious to us, that they lost on purpose in order to get rid of Billy, who dug his own hole by not working. It was something they had to do. Um, no, it wasn’t.

The four conspirators work and talk, with J.P. saying they could have won no problem – Aitu was catching up to the others and they were purposely going slow! But Cristina is still not happy about it. She tells us it’s a symptom of Ozzy trying to control everything.

Billy tells us “the situation is pretty bleak.” He’s hoping he can find an opening. But we don’t yet see him actually try to find an opening. I don’t know if he’s expecting one to fall from the sky or what.

Meanwhile, Yul arrives at Exile Island. As he’s telling us how much it sucks, I just have a feeling that he’s going to find the hidden immunity idol. He looks at the second clue, which says to use the mast and an island to form a letter, then block out the south island. Yul walks away from the masts until one of the islands is on the horizon and appears to be where the horizontal line in an A would be. Then he walks up and down that line of sight until he can’t see the southern island anymore.

He marks the spots and starts digging, going fairly deep. Good thing he has plenty of time to kill. Then we hear him exclaim, “Holy cow!” and he has indeed found it! Told ya this guy is smart!

Yul unwraps the package he finds and gets instructions and the hidden idol, which appears to be a compass. The instructions say he can use it once, with the last possible time being when there are four contestants left. Go, Yul!

Back at Aitu, an opportunity falls from the sky for Billy as Cristina goes to get water and he follows her. Cecilia says Billy “looks like a zombie” as he walks away. And you know, he kinda does. She feels bad, but J.P. and Ozzy say they don’t.

When they get to the water, Billy tells Cristina the other two guys have played him for a patsy. And once he’s gone, she’s next. She seems to agree as he says he hopes they don’t throw another challenge to get rid of her! It’s a good move for him, but his problem is that he needs three votes, not two.

Cristina says she will talk to Cecilia – ah, the third vote. So she does, in Spanish, asking if she has a deal with Ozzy. No! Cecilia says she will vote with Cristina, whatever they decide to do. At this point, it’s not terribly clear what that is, though.

Ozzy’s smart enough to know Billy will try to stir things up and flip people. And he knows Cristina is the most likely to side with him. But he says if they vote him out, they deserve what they get, because they’ll suffer without him. I do have to agree with him there – he’s the one who climbs the trees for coconuts, he gets fish, he does work, etc. Billy… lies around.

Aitu arrives at Tribal Council and goes through the torch-lighting ritual. Probst begins his questions by asking Billy if a leader stepped up to say, “this is what we’re going to do.” Billy says the initially hit the ground running but, little by little, Ozzy emerged as a big voice because he’s in his element.

Cristina doesn’t agree that Ozzy is a leader, but rather that he tries to take control because of his experience. What does Ozzy think? He doesn’t think he’s the leader, but because of his knowledge, if he doesn’t voice his opinion, things will be done wrong. But he thinks they can all get things done as a team and if they all work hard, they will be stronger than anybody else.

Probst gives him a “I can’t believe you just said that” look and asks if Ozzy thinks the tribe represented themselves well in the last challenge. Ozzy says no, not really. Billy rolled his eyes at the question, and Probst caught it, so he asks Billy what that was about. Billy says a lot of their loss had to do with him. J.P. and Ozzy decided he was hurting the tribe so they decided to throw the challenge. When Probst repeats, “You think they threw the challenge,” Billy replies, “I know they threw the challenge.”

Probst adopts a “this may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard” tone and asks J.P. if he was really willing to lose somebody already when they only have five tribe members. J.P. says at this point, yes. He doesn’t believe in carrying the weight for somebody who is untrustworthy and doesn’t work.

Is Billy surprised to hear that trust is an issue? He says he understands that a game is being played, but he fell into “a classic trap.” J.P. jumps in and says he hates the way Billy is making it sound like he’s a victim and is saying things to make himself look good. Don’t worry, J.P., the editing sure didn’t take his side. But Billy insists he’s a player who is “clawing and scratching” to play the game. J.P. says part of the game is involving yourself so people find him valuable. Billy tells him to be quiet and let him talk, so they verbally spar back and forth a bit.