CBS
(Season 17, Episode 4)
Well, the blurb doesn’t say much about this episode. Someone elicits sympathy from the tribe with waterworks but no mentions of any dead grandmothers. Someone else loves Exile Island. But the main thing that could shake this season up, and early, is the challenge wherein the tribes must rank their tribemembers in order of importance. Yeah, you know how that always winds up. People feeling left out, thinking they were more important than they turn out to be.
Rank Your Tribe
It was awesome to do this so early in the season like this. Usually, after tribes merge a challenge arises which reveals where loyalties lie. Now with only three gone, Jeff had them rank their own tribe top to bottom in importance. Then he gathered up the results and tallied them, having the castmates stand on the podiums befitting their collective rank. This means that they won’t know how each other voted, but they will know the collective consensus of their tribe. Here’s how they ranked.
Kota
Fang
And then, Jeff took away the chance for people to bitch at one another over these results by redividing everyone and picking new tribes. A little disappointing, but different! After sixteen seasons, it’s important to keep things fresh. Maybe they’ll go for the car next week! So how did the school yard pick-ems create the new tribes?
New Tribes
Kota (in the order they were selected) – Marcus, Dan, Charlie, Randy, Corinne, Susie, Bob
Fang (In the order they were selected) – Matty, Ace, Crystal, Jacquie, Ken, Kelly, GC
Marcus and Charlie stayed together while Ace and Sugar were torn apart … maybe. Actually, she got tortured some more by being sent to Exile Island until after the next tribal council, when she would join whichever team loses the next Immunity Challenge. Talk about crazy, but since Sugar already has the Immunity Idol, wonder what she picked?
Too bad the challenge didn’t turn out nearly as cool as I thought as other than Crystal bitching about her placement, the rest of it didn’t seem to matter. Oh well. Can’t win them all, I guess. Maybe they should have had them rank them in the order they would eat them if the rice ran out.
While Sugar chilled in the Exile hut snacking on fruit, the gang played a variation of water polo. And after Marcus declared that Randy needed to perform in the challenge to save his skin, Randy proceeded to be a dominant part of the challenge. In fact, ironically it was Marcus and Randy scoring three points in a row to take the whole thing.
At least, with Fang losing the Immunity Challenge, Sugar would return to the arms of her buddy Ace, Idol intact. Of course, others in the tribe feared that very scenario and worried about an alliance between her, Ace and Jacquie. At Tribal, they kept their most useless tribe member and eliminated Jacquie which was actually a pretty solid strategy. But Ace is smooth and Sugar is cute, so they could still take control of the tribe.
Clacked by Jason Hughes 
on Oct 09, 2008 @ 19:55 EST5EDT
If they were worried about Ace and Sugar, shouldn’t they vote out Ace? There are some very bad contestants this season. I digress.
Agreed, VP, removing Ace would have been a better choice.
I think what they were thinking was: If we vote out Ace we will lose our strongest player and therefore lose all challenges. And as much as I hate admitting it, I think other than Ace they pretty much all suck at the physical challenges so far…
Christian is right.
And at the next tribal council all they have to do (if they Keep Kelly) is vote 3 sugar – 2 Ace.
If Sugar keeps the idol she’ll have to play it and Ace will be gone. If she gives it to Ace (for which reason whatsoever) he will have the idol and they will most likely end up with voting out Kelly and ace keeping the idol much further. But that’s thinking too far into the future. You can’t predict these things – they just maxed the tribes at 14 which is highly unusual. Who knows when the merge will occur…