LAST EDITED ON 10-13-04 AT 05:37 PM (EST) | State of the SpoilingEpisode Five |
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Thank you for attending the SOTS presentation for Episode 5, where lots of questions will be raised and some might be answered.
First let's pick up from last week, where in a shocking turn of events, not really, the Lopevi's dispatched FBI guy Brady to Loser Lodge. As they departed Tribal Council, the Fat Five were heard to sing:
We're Sergeant Masters' Older Farts Club Tribe
We hope we will control the show
Sergeant Masters' Older Farts Club Tribe
Sit back and watch the young ones go
Sergeant Masters' Older, Sergeant Masters' Older,
Sergeant Masters' Older Farts Club Tribe
Yes, that they are...but not for long. This week promises Earthquakes and Shakeups. Which brings us to the major questions confronting us this week:
1) Which comes first, the Earthquake or the Shake-Up?
2) What is the make-up of the shaken-up tribes?
3) What are the challenges, and who will make or break them? Who will quake and sit them out?
4) Who gets taken out of the game?
The most comprehensive discussion of all of this week's dilemmas is going on in emydi's Web Promo thread. I suggest you check this out for all the vidcaps and myriad theories, but here I will attempt to summarize the main trains of thought.
Kicking off with an observation from FesterFan:
In the thread where Dabo reports the earthquake, a specific time is given, as the source is a geologic website. That time is 7/7 21:29:23, which...using UTC, or Greenwich Mean Time...really means 9:29 PM in England. Vanuatu is 11 hours ahead of GMT, which would put the earthquake at 8:29 AM on July 8.
Episode 5 begins on Day 11, July 8th, so that answers Question 1. The earthquake should hit in the morning, before anything else happens, regardless of what MB would have us believe by the sequencing of the Thursday preview. Note that in the web promo, we have earthquake reaction shots of Leann, Eliza and Travis, all wearing their original buff colors.
The next event to occur should then be (from See BS Misdirection):
Both tribes receive unexpected visits from Vanuatu natives bearing a message with consequences for all the castaways.
This is also shown in the web promo, with "One Chief" superimposed over the sequence, and we see Lea being given a necklace and staff by one of the locals visiting Lopevi. It isn't clear if a "chief" will be chosen at Yasur as well, but Yasur does receive a visit from the natives. If anyone is chosen at Yasur to be Lea's counterpart, it would seem to be Ami, as she steps forward out of the group to speak with the visitor, but there is no consensus on this.
In any case, it is strongly speculated that the chief(s) will play an important role in the reorganization of the tribes, which brings us to...
A little later, the same day. Jeff Probst is seen in the Thursday preview saying "Drop your buffs". Flowerpower points out in the web promo thread that here Jeff looks the same as in caps of him monitoring a diving challenge. So we have concluded that the tribes arrive at the beach, are reshuffled into new tribes by whatever method, and then participate in a grueling underwater contest.
The caps of this challenge reveal some details about the make-up of the new tribes, helping with the answer to Question 2. Lea and Twila are shown wearing red Lopevi buffs, in front of two hanging red discs -- retrieving the disks from underwater seems to be the point of the challenge. After some debate, it's been confirmed that Chris, not Bubba, is also seen diving in the water at the Lopevi buoy. (To me, this person looks like George W. Bush, but I checked, and W wasn't campaigning in Vanuatu that week).
Ami, Eliza, Leann and Lisa are all on Yasur's platform, as is Rory in a separate cap. In the Rory cap there is an undentifiable person sitting at the left edge of the platform who may or may not be another male assigned to Yasur.
The others are not seen, but speculation is that Scout and Julie are on Lopevi to round out the distribution of the women. More on where John K, Chad and Travis most likely end up further down.
The II is nowhere to be seen in the caps of this challenge, so the general speculation is that this is the RC. We had a little bit of info about this reward from the Vanuatu Daily Post:
Mele Cascades was closed for a 'private' function to film a survivors challenge 'reward' on Thursday 8th. The winning contestants had a full-on meal supplied to them near the waterfall in which they were swimming with nobody to bother them.
The See BS misdirection also informs us that:
A trip for one tribe leads to bonding and makes one castaway very happy.
Sounds like perhaps a former outsider in his/her tribe is feeling a lot better about their position after the switch. This could apply to Eliza or John K. or Julie.
Alrighty then, one challenge accounted for. So...is there another? Yep, looks like there is. Also in the web promo are individual shots of John K, Leann and Eliza running through the woods. While these look similar to the earthquake caps, Eliza and Leann are wearing shorts now, whereas they have on slacks during the earthquake. And John K and Leann are running past some sort of roadside marker. Rory is also shown running, wearing a yellow buff. This is probably the IC.
John K has a red buff on here, which, unless doctored by MB, puts him on the new Lopevi tribe. Which in turn makes it possible to piece together the new tribes. Assuming that Yasur retains its 7th member in the reshuffling -- and we know they end up with 4 women, so this is very likely -- we have:
New Lopevi = Lea / Twila / Chris (all seen in RC), John K (seen in IC), Julie / Scout (by default to even up gender distribution)
New Yasur = Ami / Leann / Eliza / Rory / Lisa (all seen in RC), Chad / Travis (by default to even up gender distribution)
Okay. Got all that? Take a deep breath, we're almost done. 
It's hard to glean the winner of either challenge from the vidcaps. With Probst saying during the diving challenge that two contenders have been underwater a long time, the RC may have a neck-and-neck finish. Lopevi has three strong guys in Lea, Chris and John, but their efforts may be cancelled out by poor performances by any or all of the Lopevi women, especially Scout.
On the other hand, Yasur has solid competitors in Chad, and in Lisa, it looks like. Rory probably won't be much help. Hopefully Bubba tells them that he can't actually swim and gets to sit out. Ami, Leann and Eliza could be helps or they could be hindrances. Flip a coin on the RC, for now.
We see even less of the IC -- but...we may be able to determine the winner by looking at the boot prospects for this week.
Four of Snewser's first nine boots are still left in the game: Lisa, Travis, John K and Julie. John K got some exposure in Ep 3 when he visited the Yasur camp, but last week he was on the back burner again, and is largely absent from the previews. Julie, likewise, has had no real development and also doesn't figure in the previews. Which leaves us with Lisa and Travis.
Krautboy's confessional analysis zeroes in on these two as likely for this week. Both have had some character development. Travis has been questioned about the Fat Five alliance by both John P and John K, and last week was warned by Rory not to let homesickness make him appear weak. Travis is also quite prominent in the Thursday preview.
Lisa was berated by Eliza for changing her vote last week; Lisa clearly felt it was not worth it to stick with the bowheads any longer, but her change of heart probably came too late to do her any good. Lisa is seen on the platform as well as underwater during the diving challenge in the web promo.
One last tidbit from the See BS misdirection says:
One castaway is caught by a tribemate while attempting to communicate secretly with a member of the opposing tribe.
KObrienFan opines that this is probably one of the Fat Five trying to signal an alliance buddy. Could it be the reason that the bootee gets booted? Could the caught person be Travis? Or is this misdirection apropos of nothing?
In any case, either Travis or Lisa are plausible boots. Eliza may bond with the Yasur men to get rid of Lisa. Or Bubba could get booted by the women for being a wimp. Whatever -- since we've deduced that they are both on Yasur, Lopevi must win the IC.
Other points of interest for this week: Veruca Salt's thread on editing and storyline themes is always a thought-provoking read. Two new spoilers have surfaced: A poster named Sea Flea is claiming that the order of the next four boots is Lisa, John K, Travis, Julie. There is also some interesting discussion about how the jury and final six may shake out in this thread. And a family visit spoiler is also claiming that Eliza's boyfriend and Lea's son paid visits to Vanuatu, with Eliza' s boyfriend possibly remaining there for almost a week.
Finally, Draco Malfoy has devoted a thread to the horrifying prospect that Eliza is the winner of S9. I suppose that might happen if everyone summons the Quit Boat just so they don't have to listen to her screeching anymore.
I think that covers everything. I certainly hope so because my brain is fried. But please point out any mistakes/omissions. To recap:
Reward: Very close call. I'm leaning toward a Yasur win.
Immunity: Should be a Lopevi victory.
Boot: Lisa or Travis. You decide. Or wait for Snewser.
Edited to add link to CBS Eyemail, posted last night by Krautboy. Our two boot candidates (plus Scout) are featured.
Bridge for sale to highest bidder. Call 1-800-BRroach.SOTS is provided by SurvivorBlows.com as a service to our readers. The purpose of this post is to consolidate the threads in the Spoiler Forum pertaining to this week's episode. Feel free to reply to this post if you feel that a theory you support was not adequately represented in this message... Please use this thread for unified discussion of all topics as we approach the next episode.
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