BunkoSquad

Candice returns to Aitu after her stay on Exile Island. They tell her Cecilia got voted off, and she looks surprised that they had a Tribal Council without her. They ask if they have any idea why she was chosen to go to Exile Island, and she said she never really thought about it. Candice, dude, you were on a freaking island by yourself for three days; what in God's name did you think about? We know you couldn't get the Immunity Idol, since Yul already did. We can't really imagine you spending three days working on it. Were you trying to remember all the state capitols? Mooning over Billy? Repositioning your jaunty hat just so? WHAT?!?!?

At Camp Raro, we get a charming portrait of Princess Parvati and her minions. She's mad at the boys for sitting around eating while the girls weave (maybe she's conveniently forgotten the male/female ratio of the last Immunity Challenge), but she can't be too mad at the boys, since she needs them worshiping her and groveling at her feet. So she flashes them her huge...teeth, and quietly seethes to the camera about how domineering and manipulative J.P. is. I'd assumed J.P. was just your garden-variety chump, but he's gotten under Parvati's skin. If nothing else.

Reward Challenge! Jeff invites Raro to get their first look at the Cecilia-less Aitu tribe. Reaction shots from J.P. and Christina ensue. Shocking. The challenge is an obstacle course involving ropes, swimming and a puzzle. Becky gets stuck under a log, prompting Jon to yell out, "Let's not kill these girls!" He'll be humming a different tune in three weeks, no doubt. My Mom points out that Jon has the exact same voice as Alan Alda, for whatever that's worth. Also, I can't tell whether Jessica's wearing leggings or has tattooed everything below the knee. Anyway, Aitu wins the challenge, winning some blankets and pillows. They pick Adam to go to Exile Island, figuring (probably correctly) that he'll spend as much time there strategizing as Candice did. Raro trudges back to camp, pillowless, wondering how a team with four buff dudes lost a physical challenge.

Nate, Buff Dude #1, and Parvati are spending a lot of time together. And the night lighting isn't doing a lot for her appearance. They're concerned about J.P.'s power play, and Parvati wisely(!) says "Let the king sit pretty"; i.e., don't let him know that there's a coup d'etat bubbling up from the peasants, insofar as Queen Parvati can be considered one of the peasants. Nate chimes in, but his use of metaphors is quaint, almost as if he's translating them word-for-word into Dutch and back. "The ball is in [J.P.'s] pocket," he says. It sure is.

The next morning, Aitu has gathered around and is looking at boobies. The bird, you sick freaks. Cao Boi gets bird fever, and shimmies up a tree to whack a stick at some big bird. Real smooth, since the bird is really angry. Maybe because Cao Boi knocks the nest off the top branch, spilling its contents, which consists mostly of a freshly-hatched baby bird. Jon picks it up and tries to soothe it, nonplussed. Cao Boi stays up in the tree, apologizing to those above and below him. The yolk's on him, it seems. They reassemble the nest and Cao Boi places it back from whence he whacked it. He said the experience really humbled him, though I sense he's the kind of guy who would get real competitive at the Most Humble Award ceremony. Oh, and somewhere along the line, Ozzie catches enough fish to get his picture on the New York Islanders' jerseys. Weirdest Operation Shutdown ever.

The Immunity Challenge is a team effort to "rescue" a team member from some waterborne stocks; they have to build a raft, swim out to the stocks, "rescue" the "victim", then try to "build" a fire quick enough that their "tribe"'s flag gets raised first. Candice and Parvati play the Damsels in Distress. Shocking. Ozzie, the swimmer, makes up a huge Aitu deficit in seconds. Has he really shifted from "petulant twerp" to "dark horse pick to win the whole thing" in thirty minutes? Interesting. The fire building squad is Jenny (who may or may not have lost a thumb in the firemaking), Rebecca and Stephannie for Raro, and Cao Boi for Aitu. Cao Boi wisely chooses not to whack the fire with a stick, instead waving about and dancing. Somehow this works, and Aitu wins. Raro trudges back to camp, immunityless, wondering how a team with four buff dudes lost a physical challenge.

Stephannie makes the tactical blunder of telling the team that she lost the challenge, she's the weakest member, and she probably deserves to go. Nate's all, OK, if you don't want to be here, that's good enough for me. But Rebecca and Jenny have a different idea; they realize that it's 5 women to 4 men right now, and if they let the dudes pluck Stephannie, the womens' position becomes weaker. Stephannie realizes she'd like to stick around long enough to see this happen, Christina's on board. Now we think it's 3 votes for J.P., 4 votes for Stephannie, and 2 undecided. Jenny pitches the male/female plan to Parvati; Parvati totally misreads her and starts getting worried that less dudes means less influence for Her Majesty. So she's probably voting with the guys. But Brad comes over and they point out that no one really likes J.P., and he wasn't helping them win challenges anyway. Brad's immediately on board.

Nate finds time to throttle a few more metaphors, including something about "If I come out of my shell, it might bite me in the butt."

So we know that J.P. is probably for the axe, and Jeff's questions don't really get anything out of them, except J.P. admits that Stephannie didn't exactly lose the challenge all by herself. Still, when Jeff tallies the results and announces J.P.'s departure, J.P. does an audible Keanu Reeves impression and looks around beffudledly. As Nate might say, he was taken out back and shot from the blind side.