BunkoSquad

Sally, in particular, wears a haunted look on her face. Her buddy Misty got whacked last week, and she figures she's next. She's got to prove herself valuable somehow, by winning a challenge, if not coming up with a fat fish barehanded.

Over at special-needs camp Casaya, the four who locked themselves into an unbreakable alliance before they even knew each other are starting to hate one another. Shane (who seems to have temporarily stopped chasing the dragon) and Aras come back from a long day of snail-catching, and are nonplussed to see Courtney frolicking around on the beach. As a professional fire dancer, one might think that she might have some insight into starting a fire - apparently in LA, she buys it in a can. Bobby's snoozing (he may be in Operation Shutdown; it's hard to tell), Cirie's shuffling some sand around, and suddenly Shane and Aras morph into stern parental figures. This is the tribe that keeps on giving, man.

The Reward Challenge is a mix of strength and luck: swim out to fetch a bunch of giant puzzle pieces, then hope you've thrown them into a big ring in close enough approximation to the solved puzzle that you can finish it. Casaya proves surprisingly adept, giving the camera additional time to focus on the only two things about Danielle worth mentioning. And they win! The prize: a fully assembled outhouse, a lifetime supply of Charmin, and some cute little bath soaps. They also get to tab a sucker for Exile Island; somehow they dimly remember that Terry is La Mina's leader, and so off he goes.

Casaya arrives to find its brand new one-seater. Some of them debate storing the wood there to keep it dry; Bobby has other plans for it. He wakes up, burps, grabs Reader's Digest, and off he goes, which is weird, because I thought that animals' digestive systems shut down while they're hibernating. Then Shane goes off on Danielle for not doing any work, leading her to grab a shovel and start whacking the beach. Cirie, who's fully completed the 180-degree turnaround to likeability, just giggles as she thinks about how pathetic the Dipshit Alliance turned out to be.

La Mina could be reeling from the loss of their leader, but they're not. Terry is apparently giving them signals telepathically; how else to explain the hive-mind that takes over and starts redesigning the camp? Austin wants to take a nap, but even that gets worked into the plan. This tribe would have a fully functioning Swiss Family Treehouse up and running, if they didn't have to take time out for pesky challenges. Except that they're completely out of food. Nick couldn't catch a fish in an aquarium. And Sally is desperately hoping that they'll forget her faux pas; if they'd had fishing equipment all along, La Mina would probably already have the third-strongest economy in Central America.

On Exile Island, Terry takes about six minutes to find the Immunity Idol. Now he's sittin' pretty; after the merge, presumably what's left of Casaya will take one shot at him, fail, then probably forget to vote him off.

Bring on the Immunity Challenge! It involves balance beams, water-hauling and ropes and pulleys. To balance out the numbers, Casaya sends Bobby to the sidelines. Probably a wise move, as Bobby's already gotten all the exercise in this episode that he needs. Dan botches the balance beams. Austin mismanages the water pouring. Sally runs a perfect race. And Casaya, improbably, wins its third challenge in a row. It's time for Game 7 in the Bronx.

La Mina's getting interesting. Dan promised Ruth-Marie he'd keep her alive till the merge; Austin thinks that it might be a better idea to keep Sally, who rocked at the Immunity Challenge, around instead of Ruth-Marie, who he's not sure he's even met. Austin makes a point of order: Dan swore his allegiance to Ruth-Marie, not the Alliance's. So he can vote to oust Sally and keep his word, while the rest of the tribe throws Ruth-Marie overboard. This tribe's all about exact words; no one came out and asked Terry point-blank if he found the Idol, so he never answered. They've already formed a legal system!

And now it's time for their next execution. Jeff almost asks Terry point-blank about the Idol, but not quite. We see both Sally and Ruth-Marie casting their votes for the other, but really sad to do it. The idea of trying to crack the Alliance and blind-side, let's say Nick, never occurs to them. This edition of Survivor isn't doing a lot for the feminist movement. The bell tolls for Ruth-Marie, and La Mina circles the wagons tighter. Till next time.

(Incidentally, in case you've forgotten, the Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit, erasing 86 years of humilation at the hands of the Yankees. The offensive stars of Game 7, Mark Bellhorn and Johnny Damon, are now Yankees. Make what you will of that.)