Survivor 4: Marquesas

8 March, 2002

Week 2 Wrapup

Well the high hopes of week one fell away a bit this week as the show degenerated into a contest of who annoys the most. Of the two tribes, Maraamu is clearly the most factious. So far there doesn't seem to be any clear lines developing. While Hunter may be the clear leader, he hasn't managed to pull a majority of his tribe to him yet. Rob holds back, trying to protect Sarah who has a busy schedule of looking pretty to attend to. Sean keeps his own council as he clearly wants the leadership role that Hunter has fallen into. Unfortunately for Sean, his battle plan to get there is pretty flawed. Nobody is going to follow him just because he's strong. He hasn't done anything to indicate that he can lead. What he has done is show a lack of work ethic, specifically to avoid doing what Hunter says. That gives him his independence but no base of power. Gina seems clearly with Hunter. Vecepia is a bit of a wildcard right now. She seems to be resisting allying with anyone at this point.

You'll probably notice that I didn't mention Patricia. That's because it really doesn't matter what alliances she might have been aiming for as she got the boot in this episode. They called her Mom, mostly because of her age and her nagging. That nagging got her shown the door.

Meanwhile, over at Rotu, things are much quieter. For the most part they seem a happy family, with the exception of Kathy. She seems incapable of settling into the tribe. While the others spend time together getting to know one another, Kathy is off on her own, doing her own thing. She's a very single minded individual. In the first episode she locked in on getting a fire going until the tribe did it just to quiet her. That behavior is now a pattern as this week she needled them into building a larger more waterproof shelter. Admittedly she's getting things done, even finding food, but her attitude has clearly turned off her tribemates. Look for her to get voted out as soon as Rotu loses an immunity challenge.

Admittedly the likelihood of Rotu losing a challenge looks dim at the moment but it's unlikely they'll remain perfect. Maraamu is getting aggravated with the losing and that tends to create energy, energy that can be used to win a challenge. This week featured a reward challenge for a mask, snorkel and swim fins. It required the tribes to dive underwater to raise a boat weighted down with rocks and then row it to shore. Rotu won this one not so much due to athletic ability but because they came up with the simple solution for removing the rocks from the boat first. The immunity challenge was the standard "eat something disgusting" challenge. This time around it was a local delicacy that consisted of raw fish in a marinade of rotting meat and sea water. Yummy. It didn't look all that gross but apparently the smell was the killer. Everyone managed to choke a piece down which meant a tie breaker where one person from each tribe had to eat a whole bowl of the stuff. Neleh out ate Rob for the win here. That also meant that we've been treated to the site of someone vomiting two weeks in a row now.

Going into the tribal council it appeared that the heads of Patricia, Sarah and Sean were on the chopping block. Patricia's nagging was making her unpopular, coupled with her age and physical condition. The flotation devices have won her favor with Rob but the rest of the tribe isn't enamored of her work ethic. Similarly, Sean's work ethic isn't winning him any popularity contests. In the end though, Patricia was deemed the most expendable.

From an entertainment aspect, this episode was considerably weaker than the season premiere. In fact, if not for the always entertaining gross food challenge, this would have been rated much lower. It's only a matter of time before someone airs a game show where people eat disgusting things for money. Hopefully next week's episode, which airs Wednesday instead of the normal Thursday, will be better.

Episode Rating: 5 out of 10

- John Shea

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