Surviving the Cook Islands, Episode 8: “Mutineers Are the First People to Die”

Ozzy says the reward was like a recharge and he’s ready for anything. They open the mail from home and get photographs as well. They read the mail and pretty much all cry. Sundra talks about how she hasn’t seen her son in three weeks. She feels bad but teaches him not to quit, so she can’t. Group hug!

Ozzy says they’re stronger than they’ve ever been – the mutiny solidified their commitment to one another. Well, it certainly did for him, since he was the outside guy before!

Day 20 on Exile Island, Candice says she’s been waiting the whole time to get back with her pals, Adam and Parvati, so she mutinied. And now there are four people on the Aitu tribe who are really mad at her. Ya think? She was surprised that Jonathan joined her – he’d been talking about being tight but she never trusted him. Now she’s stuck on Exile Island while Jonathan is bonding with their new tribe.

So we cut to Raro, where he tells his new tribemates that he took a step into the unknown so he could be with them. He asks if they were shocked that he and Candice wanted to come over. They mutter “no.” But he says it was a crazy thing to do, but it seemed like the right thing.

Jonathan tells us that if he made a mistake, it was in trusting Candice too much – she made an impulsive move and he followed. He’s in the danger seat. He continues talking to the tribe, saying he considers himself a loyal person (I bet there are four people on Aitu who might disagree). Parvati yawns and the others look about as interested. He keeps going, saying he and Candice had been together through the whole thing, so when she mutinied, he joined her.

He tells us his game plan is to earn their trust by being totally non-threatening and help. From what Nate tells us, I don’t think it’s working. He says he knew Candice would come over, but Jonathan? If he thinks he can just come into their tribe and start stirring things up, he’s smoking something. Even though Nate was thinking about booting Brad before, Brad is now safe for at least one vote because he stood with them. Jonathan will definitely be the first to go – why would they cover his back when he sold out his other tribe?!

The next day, Jonathan tries to prove his worthiness by getting coconuts while the women laze about. The men are pretty much doing the same. He talks to Adam about how opportunity knocked and he took the risk. He tells Adam he doesn’t know what’s going on in Raro, but he and Candice wanted to come back and be with Adam and Parvati.

Adam tells us it’s good to have somebody like Jonathan along for the ride, because he wants Adam (and Parvati and Candice) in the final four. Ironically, Jonathan tells Adam, “This game is all about trust.” He’d better hope that’s not true, because he just broke his trust with his other alliance!

And now it’s time for the immunity challenge. Well, that was quick. The tribes arrive and Candice joins them. Probst explains how it will go. They have to paddle out in glass-bottomed boats, searching for three underwater targets. When they line up the sights from their boat on the target, they release a cannonball, which drops through the bottom of the boat (through a hole, not the glass!). If they hit the target, it releases a pair of buoys. When then have all the buoys and get back to shore, they will find that each has a letter written on them – except one with a clue – and they need to use those to solve a word puzzle.

Because you cannot sit out back-to-back challenges, Raro has to sit out everybody who participated in the reward challenge. Thus, it’s Jonathan, Parvati, Rebecca, and Brad.

And they’re off! They push their boats and jump in. Raro immediately goes off in the wrong direction while Aitu lines up pretty quickly – but just misses. Raro gets back on course, but they miss the first time too.

Aitu takes their time to line up and… misses again. Raro realizes they need to go easy too – and they hit. Aitu misses a third time. I wonder how many cannonballs they have.

Raro hits their second target. Uh oh. Aitu gets close and Yul decides to just go for it – and hits! As they move to their second, Raro drifts away from their third. Aitu misses again. But then Yul hits on his second try and the teams are tied. Yul has apparently found a better way to line up with the target rather than using the sights on the glass bottom. I think he uses the hole through which the cannonball goes.

Raro misses their third target. And again by dropping the ball into the open hole by accident. Probst announces that they wasted a cannonball and Jonathan says, “Oh please.” So Probst announces, “Jonathan is getting frustrated by me.” Ha!

Yup, Yul is definitely using the cannonball hole to target. He does it again and gets the third set of buoys! Raro has blown their lead. And they miss again! They don’t seem to understand that if they are actually moving when they release, the ball does not drop straight down. Physics, guys.

Aitu gets back to the beach. Parvati instructs Jonathan to paddle and not watch Aitu. Bad boy, Jonathan. Meanwhile, Yul reads the clue buoy, saying something about the most infamous mutiny in history occurred aboard this ship. They quickly realize it must be “Bounty,” and start putting up the letter buoys. Indeed, they are correct. Aitu wins!

Raro returns to camp, bummed out. Jonathan apologizes, but talk quickly turns to how Candice is doing after Exile Island. She says she’s a little hungry, but not bad. Jonathan tells us he’s glad to have Candice back, as it takes some of focus off him as the only new guy. They’re together and they have trusted each other.

Jonathan goes out fishing as Candice gets the camp scoop from Parvati. Parvati tells her that Jonathan has been telling them how tight he and Candice are – but Candice says, “not too tight at all – I was shocked.” She says he had long talks with Yul and had only talked to her about solidifying things in the past few days. He worked everybody to do what was best for him. Things are not looking good for Jonathan.

Nate and Adam talk about how Jonathan has gone to get food. Nate says good – he can feed them while he’s here. Oh, things are really not looking good for Jonathan. But Adam steps up to defend him, saying maybe they should keep him around a bit. Nate’s not liking the idea, but Adam points out Jonathan cannot go back to his old Aitu tribemates if there’s a merge; however, Brad could jump ship. But Nate points out that Brad didn’t leave when he had the chance. Adam says as long as they are the next two, he’s not concerned about the order.