Well, as you could imagine, this encounter did not end happily. Cao Boi took a branch and poked at the bird, ultimately knocking the nest off its perch and down to the bushes below. Even worse, inside that nest was a weee baby chick that had been just born in the past twenty-four hours (according to Jonathan's expert veterinarian analysis). The poor thing had survived the fall, but now it had been separated from its mother, causing Jonathan to start crying. Even Cao Boi felt immediate remorse. What to do? What to do? I've got an idea: put it back in the nest and return it to momma booby. After some hemming and hawing, the group decided to do just that. They returned the baby and nest to the mother, and on the soundtrack, a gentle, inspirational piano twinkled. What was this? Extreme Makeover: Nest Edition? I could just imagine Ty Pennington showing up with his bullhorn and yelling, "Gooooood morning, booby family!"

It's okay, Jonathan. We all cry when we hold boobies in our hands.

Anyway, after the boobies had been reunited, we then headed out to the immunity challenge where Adam returned to his team, all full of smiles and Eckhart-edness. We then learned to rules to this latest convoluted mess. The teams had to assemble stretchers (made out of puzzle pieces, natch), and then four people had to run through the jungle with the stretcher until they reached the beach. Then one person had to swim out to a mast in the middle of the water where another tribe member would be shackled. After this person was free, the two then had to jump back into the water with a life ring and swim back to the stretcher. THEN the person who had been stuck on the mast had to get on the stretcher, which the other four people would take back through the jungle and to the starting point. Once they returned, the three members who had been waiting around then had to build a rescue fire. The first tribe the build a fire big enough to burn through a rope and drop a flag would win immunity. So as you can see, a pretty straightforward challenge.

Well, from the getgo, Raro seemed to have a lead. They managed to reach the ocean way ahead of Aitu. In fact, they were moving so quickly, Probst seemed positively winded as he tried to keep up. The brawn returns! But as JP swum out to his captive Poverty, Aitu arrived at the beach, and Ozzy shot out from the pack like a rabid booby. He quickly caught up to and surpassed JP, whose face was now flowing with snot, and before long, he had freed Candice from her shackles, and the two were swiftly zipping back to shore with their life ring in tow.

Sure enough, Candice was up and loaded on the stretcher in no time, and after some careful navigation, the gang had returned to the starting point, which meant they could now start building a fire. Cao Boi managed to get a small flame going, but it soon fizzled out into a lot of smoke. Well, as the old adage says, "Where there's smoke, there's... an opportunity to make more smoke." Yes, Cao Boi took his smoking mess and began fanning it around, trying to resuscitate the once promising flame, but all he wound up doing was make a smoggy mess. Of course, this earned the derision of Probst who commented, "Cao Boi: has his own system." Translation: "IDIOT."

Dance of the boobies...

As for Raro, they actually managed to catch up, which meant that Stephannie, Jenny, and Rebecca were now trying to build a fire. Steph struck the flint over and over with a little ax, but the most she could produce were a few sparks -- not to mention a whole lot of blood, courtesy of Jenny's hand. Turns out that striking human flesh with an ax doesn't produce a spark either.

Ultimately, Cao Boi managed to get his fire burning first (no word on whether it was because of his odd smoke antics). Aitu won immunity, and for the second time, the macho men of Raro had to face the reality that they might not be as virile as their physiques would suggest (anyone else having memories of Osten from Pearl Islands?).

As the Raro gang headed back to camp, it seemed like Parvati's best move would be to rally all the girls together to vote off one of the guys. I mean, as long as they weren't helping them win challenges, there was no point in keeping them around. Nevertheless, at camp, everyone did their best to make everyone else feel better about their failure. "Too bad we went up against a Zen fire master," Poverty said. I'm not sure if I'd call Cao Boi a Zen fire master. It's more like he just had the luck of the boobies with him that day.

In an ill-advised move that I would recommend, Stephannie then suddenly piped up and admitted that she was the weakest link of the entire challenge. The implication was that if everyone wanted to vote her out, she'd understand. Bad move, sista friend. Everyone pretty much shrugged and decided that if she wanted to go home, they'd send her home. Personally, I felt like this was just massive misdirection, but then again, my misdirection meter has been a little off lately.

If it made Stephannie feel any better, Nate was planning on telling her about the ouster in advance, just so she wouldn't be blindsided. In his words, he wanted to make sure she went out on the "red carpet." Yeah, that doesn't happen on Survivor.

Posted by B-side on October 6, 2006 4:15 PM