PENNER!
How much do you love Penner? OK, everyone loves him, right? We're all on the same page here?
Right, so backing up a bit... things weren't looking too good for Penner. Even his allies had voted against him. He knew it. There was no point in lying to him about it. Good eggs like Denise just told him straight up, yeah, I voted for you... I had to look out for myself, sorry. And he wasn't a whiny baby about it... he just decided not to quit. In the meantime, might as well help my team win a reward.
The tribe was divided into two teams for a reward challenge. It just so happened that the evil ones were all on one team (to review: Abi, Pete and Artis in addition to Skupin and Carter, who aren't evil, just goofy) and the nice, normal ones were mainly on one team (Malcolm, Denise, Lisa, Penner and Jeff.) Good won out over evil and the nice bunch got to go out for a picnic lunch. And Penner got to work a bit of magic.
All that magic would have been for nothing, though, if he didn't win immunity. He knew he had to win. Was it Jeff who later said that everyone went into the challenge saying that anyone can win except Penner, and of course it's Murphy's Law that Penner would, therefore, win. It was such a good challenge, too. It was one of those ones where everyone competes and then only the first three move on to the next portion of the challenge. Penner beat out Skupin by the tiniest margin... literally, Penner threw himself over the line like a baseball player sliding into home base, while Skupin hurried, but was like, a forearm behind Penner! Then it was a snake-shaped puzzle. Penner started out behind Jeff and Pete. Everyone is cheering for either Jeff or Pete. Penner stays calm. Once again, he gets the puzzle finished before Jeff by what must have been a tenth of a second. Crazy! PENNER WINS IMMUNITY!
Oh. Now, no one knows what to do. Craziness ensues.
The obvious first choice is Skupin. He's the other returnee. However, the original yellow alliance wants to keep their numbers strong and they don't feel like he's going to flip on them. So all of a sudden, Lisa becomes a mastermind of the game. She goes to Pete, and tells him about Malcolm having an idol. It's a solid strategy. Everyone likes Malcolm, but he's a huge physical threat, he's got an idol and he wasn't one of the original yellow tribe. Solid. However, Pete confronts Malcolm about it, thus throwing the lady under the bus who just threw Malcolm under a different bus... are you still following? Malcolm denies it and Pete believes him. On to the next plan, and now Lisa is worried.
The next name thrown around is Jeff. The yellow bunch decides that getting rid of the old Red tribe is the way to go, and without Penner to vote for, Jeff is the next biggest threat. Again, a solid strategy. Meanwhile, Jeff and the old Reds are thinking of voting off Pete, who again is a physical threat, part of a solid axis of evil, and well, not very nice. Yet another solid strategy.
Both groups think they have - or could have - the numbers on their side. If the Yellows stay strong, they have 5 originals, plus Malcolm. The Reds have 4 and think they may be able to get Malcolm or Skupin to flip against Pete.
Then Tribal Council happens. All this stuff comes out. And, Abi opens her mouth, proving herself one of the dumbest players ever. First she blabs about her alliance with Pete & Artis, basically saying that Lisa and Skupin are at the bottom of the heap. Then, more craziness. Malcolm shows that he has the idol. And he announces that he's going to play it to get rid of it, so don't bother putting his name down. Smart, right? No one's going to bother voting Malcolm.... So then Probst says, "OK, does anyone else feel like sharing that they have an idol." OK, says Abi, who reaches into her bag & pulls out the other idol!!!! Say it with me... Idiot. Oh honey, just because Jeff asks you, doesn't mean you have to share....Ay-yi.
Later Probst would say that this was one of the biggest missed opportunities of the game, ever. Why? Because everyone knew that Abi was not going to play that idol. It would have been a PERFECT opportunity to take her out, the idol along with her, and break up that axis of evil. Thing is, the only person who recognized this opportunity was Penner, and apparently no one else was on his page. And by Penner voting Abi, his 'side' only had 4 votes for Pete against the yellow side's 5 votes for Jeff. Penner will know for sure now that Skupin is not with him - fellow returning player or not. And, next time it looks like the Witches of Eastwick bully Lisa into possibly flipping over to team Penner. Things can happen quickly at this point in the game and fortunes can change. At this point, they need to get those idols gone more than they need Penner gone, but clearly not everyone realizes that.
Sheesh, I'm tired going over all that again. It was stressful. Also, can I point out that those former Reds need to stick together more than ever before if there are jury votes at stake. Even though he's not well liked, do you really want to go up against Pete or Artis at the end? Nope. Abi, maybe, because she's not liked AND stupid, so even her team couldn't vote for her once she opened her mouth.
I'm a little sad Jeff is gone. He was a good player, and truly does deserve it more than Artis or Abi. But so it goes. I enjoyed how pissed he was about losing. He said he'd made a gazillion dollars playing baseball and lost a World Series and that losing this was more painful. I believe it.
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