Survivor Analysis 2: Victory for Fang & More Updates!

At last, the Fang Tribe won their back-to-back reward and immunity challenges after their three straight loses in the first two episodes of Survivor Gabon.

The reward challenge was all about strength and only required a specific number of men and woman. The "One member of each tribe would hang on to a post. Two members of the opposing tribe would attempt to remove the tribe member from the post and drag them across the sand to the finish line. The first tribe to get the member of the other tribe across the finish line would receive one point. The first tribe to score two points wins (Wikipedia)."

The Fang Tribe aced the challenge despite their big failure during the first round, wherein GC opted to rest and worst case scenario is, he's not helping Matty to remove Ace from the post. Geez, what's happening to GC?

It's a huge grace from Heaven above when Fang did come back on the second round. Crystal and Randy have no dilemmas in dragging little Paloma to the finish line. Good work, Crystal! She really stands out during this challenge and she was acting like a hungry werewolf who wants to devour her enemies.

The third round was a real close fight.

"Marcus and Bob will go at it for Kota while Crystal and Matty go for Fang... Matty gets the top half of Ace off the post, but Bob and Marcus have Dan almost off. Crystal gets Ace’s legs off and they drag him along. Ace tries to get away but Matty tackles him. This is a tough fight on both sides. Matty pulls and pulls and… gets Ace across! Fang wins! (Reality News Online)"


In this reward challenge, the three stand-out characters in Fang were Dan (for hanging on and not giving up to Marcus and Bob's), Matty (for literally pulling Ace's legs to their victory) and of course, Crystal Cox (She was the bomb and her tribe has no hopes in winning without her).

GC was also a stand-out and until now, he didn't produce any positive notes for his tribe. He's behaving like he wants to give up and go home considering he has won the immunity idol around his neck the first episode and he's given the upperhand to stay in the game longer than the rest. If this is GC's strategy, it's not a good one but it might work for him.

Survivor: Gabon - Reward Challenge: Kicking and Screaming

Getting wet was the main concept of the immunity challenge. The six members have to slide into the river to retrieve numbered tiles. When all the numbered tiles are retrieved, it's all up to the tribe's seventh member to solve a numeric puzzle to open a locked chest. Inside the locked chest was an ax. The seventh member would use this ax to cut the rope and raise their tribe's flag.



During the first portion of the game, Fang was a little left behind in water slide. However, they still managed to catch up during the nerve-cracking puzzle match-up between an online-game-addict and a physics teacher.

Jeff Probst, the host, was even trying to rationalize and says,

"You don’t need to be a math major to figure this puzzle out."

Huge immunity victory for Fang in the end as Ken Hoang outsmarted the physics teacher in solving the complex riddle that goes like this:

"The sum of both end values equals the sum of the middle two, the last is equal to the second minus the third and is one less than its only neighbor."

Without a doubt, Ken Hoang was the big hero of this challenge and just by watching how he saved his tribe from another fall and shame, I think he'll be a dark horse in the succeeding episodes.

By the way, the correct answer to the riddle was 1-7-2-4-6-5.

Other highlights during this episode were:

1) The blondie, Sugar of Kota Tribe, found the hidden immunity idol during her stay in exile island and was too proud of herself saying that the soul of her deceased father was there to shower blessings.

2) Ace (Kota) was showing his true colors and all throughout the episode, he's been a cocky dog who thinks he's in a complete control of the game.


3) Paloma was voted-off and seriously, this little but attractive lass was one of my first choices to be in my FIRST IMPRESSION FAVORITES before the season's premiere. Unfortunately, I felt she didn't have what it takes to stay in the game.

I was amazed at how my instincts work and I was completely right, Paloma was the third castaway to go because her other tribe members thinks they still need Ace's strength in next challenges. Whoa! This puts my another favorite in the chopping board, Paloma's best buddy in the game is Kelly Czarnecki and if Kota will be in the Tribal Council next week, she might be the next one to go.

Geez, but I'm looking forward to a tribe switch next week and hopefully, Kelly might stay a little longer. If a switch happens, Kelly can advance into the jury. Michelle Chase was already out the game and she was voted out due to her perceived negative attitude. I don't want this unlucky event to happen to Kelly.

In fact, David Bloomberg of Reality News Online wrote:

"Before the game began, host Jeff Probst said in the TV Guide Network preview that Michelle was probably used to having people bring her into a group, but that doesn’t work on Survivor. Indeed, as the first rule says, “From the very beginning, you have to start making alliances and cementing relationships.” Michelle did neither, preferring to hang around almost solely with Ken and staying away from all the people she didn’t like (just about everybody else)."

To read the thorough analysis on why Michelle Chase lost, click this LINK

To read Paloma's exclusive interview, you can also visit the link: Reality News Online

Survivor Philippines Updates


Emerson Dino, the technician of Naak Tribe was voted out during the second Tribal Council and the tables have already turned upside-down due to Naak's first-ever win during the Gross Food Immunity Challenge.

Last Friday (10-02-2008), Gigit Sulit, tagged as Lone Rider and the oldest castaway in Survivor Philippines had to face the dead-end. Strategically, I rather have Gigit in the game than John.


It's a good news John was safe from danger and managed to come back on track. Yet, John was a real physical threat and his alliance with Jace and Vern was strong. If he's making it on the merge, he'll probably aced the individual immunity challenges and I don't want that to happen.

I want JC, Kaye and Nikki to get the upperhand as the season's progress but anything can happen, the more I expect, the more I get frustrated.

I'm sure there's still a lot of interesting twists in the game considering Jarakay was put in shock to vote another member out in the game right after Gigit exit.

This will be interesting, Jarakay was now vulnerable.

Photos courtesy of:
www.cbs.com
www.realitynewsonline.com
www.friendster.com