It’s not often that a strongly divided tribe engages in a group hug after voting out a member of the majority alliance, but that’s what happens when the Survivors return to camp after blindsiding James and are overcome with relief that their plan worked and that James didn’t use his immunity idol to survive the betrayal and then slay everyone in a fit of rage.
As usually happens sometime during a season, a relative of each Survivor shows up at this week’s reward challenge. Erik’s mom, Amanda’s sister, Peih-Gee’s dad, Todd’s sister, Courtney’s dad and Denise’s husband run out one by one to embrace their scruffy, smelly family member. As Denise greets her husband with a hug, she asks him, “Can I have your socks?”, which I think is a brilliant way to greet anyone, ever.
The funniest relative is Courtney’s dad — distinguished, debonair, gray-haired, dressed in slacks and a long-sleeved buttoned shirt. “I’m English; I don’t do shorts,” he explains. Yeah, but you still have to participate in the challenge, overdressed British dude. When Jeff Probst mentions that, Courtney’s dad looks visibly upset, as if he truly didn’t see that coming. I think I’m starting to see where Courtney’s eye-rolling comes from.
The Survivors and the loved ones are blindfolded, and each pair has to find each other and make their way to the center of a maze. This was one of the more enjoyable challenges to watch this season — not only is there the dynamic of seeing the Survivors connect with someone from home, but there’s also a huge possibility of people getting hurt. I enjoyed hearing Amanda and her sister making bird calls to each other (one trilling; the other responding with “p-KAW! p-KAW!”) and I liked Denise’s terse response of “Stop that noise,” but my favorite part was Courtney’s dad’s reaction when Todd collides with him: “Bloody nose. Bloody nose.”
Denise and her husband win the reward of a boat trip, meal and a call from home, and despite Peih-Gee’s “You owe me one for taking you to the temple” expression, Denise chooses Todd and Amanda to come along with their loved ones.
Remember on the Pearl Islands season a few years ago, when Jonny Fairplay’s friend came on the show for a challenge and told him that Jonny’s grandma had died when really she was alive and well and probably back home watching Springer? A similar thing happens in this episode, when Todd is told by his sister that a younger sister had miscarried.
Later, while the others are off on their reward, Erik, Peih-Gee and Courtney ponder whether Todd could be pulling a Fairplay. Erik respectfully doubts Todd’s story (I don’t think I’ve ever seen Erik be disrespectful), and Courtney wonders whether Todd’s teenage sister maybe wouldn’t appreciate her news being broadcast on national TV. This seems a rare flash of sensitivity from the blunt blonde. Perhaps Erik’s super-nice nature is rubbing off on her.
Then Courtney tells the camera, “Todd was going for the Oscar with his performance of ‘My Sister Had a Convenient Miscarriage.'” She melodramatically acts out Todd’s reaction in a weepy, choked-up, wrist-flung-up-to-forehead way and concludes, “That is not, like, the fake Jonny Fairplay ‘my grandma died’ [story]. You can almost forgive that — that’s funny.” I really hope that the sister isn’t real or the story isn’t true — otherwise there’s a young woman somewhere who just saw her brother’s reaction to her “convenient” miscarriage mocked on a hit TV show. At least Todd’s sister can probably agree with Courtney that her miscarriage wasn’t funny.
Todd, Amanda and Denise return from their trip along with their loved ones (and, in the case of Todd and Amanda, with chocolate on their hands that they allow Erik, Peih-Gee and Courtney to lick off … so Todd and Amanda literally have the others eating out of the palm of their hands). By watching the Survivors talk with their loved ones, we learn that Denise hopes to stick with Todd and Amanda till the end, and that Todd and Amanda plan to take Courtney instead of Denise to the final three, since the three of them are on equal footing as far as what enemies they’ve made.
And we learn that the butt-blurring condition that afflicts Amanda must run in her family — when her sister jumps into the water at camp, she, too, displays the unmistakable mark of someone suffering from Intermittent Butt-Blur.
Peih-Gee wins the immunity challenge (which involves an exhausting water obstacle course and a few questions on Chinese inventions — Peih-Gee’s knowledge of Chinese culture comes in handy again), so the obvious choice for the four remaining Fei Long members is to vote out Erik …
… unless Peih-Gee and Erik can get someone to come to their side. But even though Denise appears to agree with them that she might not get further than fourth place if she sticks with Todd, Amanda and Courtney (in fact, we never hear the threesome tell her otherwise), she ends up sticking with her alliance and voting out Erik. As she casts her vote, she says, “I’m sorry I have to do this — this is probably the biggest mistake I’m going to make in this game.”
