Survivor: Cook Islands: Flirting and Frustration

(S13E03) Survivor's "social experiment" has come to an end. A bit prematurely in my opinion. I suspect it was ended quickly so that one team wasn't immediately winnowed out. Now we get two equally matched tribes. It's a bit more boring and so we will have to wait until some of the less interesting tribemembers get voted out. At this point it's just a bit of an alpha male domination fest. I'm hoping this doesn't turn out to be one of those seasons that makes me ashamed for all womankind.

The tribes are divided into four teams of men and women and then into two tribes of integrated men and women. The two new tribes are Aitu and Raro. Nate for one is happy to be "out of the ghetto" and Flicka is happy to be in an integrated group. She and Cao Boi are clearly kindred space cadets. Cecilia fills Candice in on the "love at first sight" situation with Billy and she explains what we of course already knew, that Candice has no interest in Billy. Overall everyone is so happy to be integrated that it's a bit disturbing.

With Candice gone Parvatii is free to flirt on her own fresh new tribe and she gets to work on Adam and Nate. Her flirting is so blatant that it seems hard to take seriously. And of course, alliance formation is already in play. Yul, Candice,Jonathan, Becky and Flicka seek to form an alliance. Flicka seems interested in just making friends and "not feeling fake" (good luck with that). Yul seems willing to put his total trust in Becky and tells her he found the idol. I suspect that at some point she is going to make a decision that involves betraying him.

Nate catches an octopus. He's clearly happy to be running with a pack of ab-toting boys now. We didn't seem him being quite so he-manly with his old tribe.

This week's challenge is the pack mule classic. The tribes walk around with giant bags of sand, the first tribe to go down loses. The women quickly give their sand to the men (except for Rebecca who lasts the longest for the women). Aitu leads early but Raro catches up and goes after the weak link, Cao Boi and wins. Since they have a chance to save someone by sending them to Exile Island, they pick pretty Candice.

With Candice on Exile Island, Becky's alliance doesnt have the numbers. A new alliance that includes Flicka, Cao Boi and Ozzy wants to vote Becky out. Flicka tells Jonathan who tells Yul. Yul really wants to stick by Becky but Cao Boi tells him she is a princess. Jonathan tries to push Flicka which is bit like herding cats. It seems Becky has been a bit unfriendly to the rest of the tribe. She is the type of player who chooses her alliance mates and doesn't give the time of day to anyone deemed unworthy/unhelpful.

The vote comes down to Becky versus Cecilia. It's close but it eventually proves to be Cecilia which proves to Ozzy that his alliance is the vulnerable one and that Flicka is in Jonathan's pocket (he is definitely a more handsome, less nude version of Richard Hatch). Ozzy sulks clearly not liking his loss of control in his new tribe. The first week I pegged Ozzy as an eary favorite but his blatant jockeying for position may end up making him a target.