Survivor: Gabon, Week 3: Survival of the Useless

On Kota, Kelly feels she could be on the chopping block because she cast a vote against Ace at the last Tribal Council. Indeed, Ace tells the camera, in a devilish way, in whatever kind of accent he has, that Kelly will be “the next lamb to the slaughter.” He likes sounding like a Bond villain.

Meanwhile, on the Fang tribe, Randy, Matty, Dan and Susie form an alliance when they sneak off to complain about GC, Crystal and Ken.

And then the tribes are switched up.

First, each person fills out a tally board, ranking their tribemates according to their importance within the tribe. On Kota, Marcus is ranked most important, followed by Ace, Bob, Charlie, Jacquie, Corinne, Sugar and Kelly. On Fang, Matty is the kingpin, followed by Dan, Randy, Crystal (her response to being ranked after Randy: “What … the … hell?”), Ken, GC and Susie.

Then Marcus and Matty start picking new tribes. The switch-up strikes Matty as “such a buzzkill,” since he was “super content” with his alliance. The new Kota consists of Marcus, Dan, Charlie (Marcus and Charlie beam because they’re staying together), Randy, Corinne, Susie and Bob (who had been ranked high but was picked low). The new Fang members are Matty, Ace, Crystal, Jacquie, Ken, Kelly (because, Ken says, he knows how it feels to be left out … and she’s hot) and GC.

Sugar isn’t picked by either tribe, and so she goes to Exile, where she’ll stay until she joins the tribe that loses a member at the next Tribal Council. Because she’s already found the hidden immunity idol, Sugar chooses the “Comfort” option on Exile and relaxes in the hut (which she calls her “Sugar shack”). She hopes that Fang is the tribe she’ll join, so she’ll be back with Ace. She figures that if Fang loses the challenge, Kelly would be the one kicked off, since “they’re not idiots.”

Kelly, meanwhile, is telling original Fang members Ken, Crystal and GC that she doesn’t like Jacquie or Ace, and that she’s fine with jumping ship and voting against them.

Before the immunity challenge, which is described in the tree mail as “water polo meets lacrosse,” Randy tells his tribemates, “I will do my best, despite hating each and every one of you. ” “Oh, Randy,” they laugh. He doesn’t laugh. He’s not kidding.

The challenge involves the contestants in individual rafts, using a paddle both to move their raft and to handle the ball. Most folks have difficulty with doing much of anything, but Marcus and Randy dominate, with Marcus advancing the ball and Randy shooting goals into Fang’s net. The tale of the rest of the challenge can be told through these quotes:

* Emmy winner Jeff Probst: “Crystal: just watching. Kelly: not doing anything. Kenny can’t do anything.”
* Kelly, pouting: “I can’t even move.”
* Probst: “Kelly: making no progress.”
* Crystal: “Kelly! Kelly! The ball!”
* Jacquie: “C’mon, Kelly, get to it.”
* Probst: “Kelly: not doing much.”
* Probst: “Kenny: virtually useless in this challenge.”

After Kota wins easily, Probst concludes, “Fang, without question — one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen at a challenge.”

Afterward, the Fang tribe sits around and assesses their loss (which Ace describes as his tribe being like “legless chickens racing against sleek weasels.” Or “slick weasels.” I couldn’t understand his Bond-villain accent) and licks their wounds and laughs a little at how sucky some of them were. Kelly just mutters “Should-a, could-a, would-a — over it,” and she stands up and walks away from the group.

Although Kelly had formed an alliance with GC, Crystal and Ken, they don’t want to keep losing, so they think they’ll vote out Kelly due to her uselessness at the challenge and her negative attitude. Ah, but they know Sugar may have the immunity idol, and she could share it with Ace and Jacquie, which would give them power over the original Fang members (they do know it’s just one idol and it can’t protect three people forever, right?), so they decide to keep Kelly and vote out Jacquie, who had performed pretty well at the challenge.

The threesome shares the plan with Matty, who then warns Jacquie, who says, “We have to convince them that Kelly sucks.” Well, everyone’s already sold on the fact that Kelly sucks, but Jacquie does gain sympathy and respect from the original Fang members as she pleads with them to keep her.

But it’s not enough. Even though Kelly did nothing at the challenge, even though her attitude is like an acid dripping on the tribe’s morale, even though she has the questionable judgment to say at Tribal Council that Ken and Crystal — two of the people deciding her fate — were weaker than she was in the challenge, the tribe decides to vote out Jacquie.