Episode 5: Decisions, Decisions
As Gluboko walked home from their second tribal council of the game, Matt and Hayley were visibly indignant at the fact that Sue and Kim had voted out one of the three Australians. By the time the tribe of six was approaching their camp, Sue gathered the courage to go up to Matt and apologize. However, Matt brushed Sue aside and continued as if she wasn't even there. "There goes the new Aussie Alliance," he grumbled under his breath. He and Hayley gathered their sleeping materials and brought them away from the shelter and closer to the fire, trying to show that they wanted nothing to do with the remaining Glubokos. The four North Americans shrugged and all huddled together in the shelter to escape from the cold of the recent storm. When Melkiy woke up in the morning, Mike began to gather the materials needed to cook breakfast for the tribe. Corey came over to help, but soon regretted that decision. Mike started singing the song "Copa Cabana" very loudly. After falling on the ground laughing, Corey managed to say, "Can't you sing any other song?!?" Mike laughed, winked, and shook his head. Corey grinned, and then announced that he was going to check for treemail. After a few minutes, Mike heard Corey yelling to the rest of the tribe. "Hey, Will- what did your napkin say at the reward feast a few days ago?" Will sauntered over to Corey, and pored over the newest treemail. "This is it," he said quietly. "This is the switch." The treemail told them to select three people who have a big decision to make. Will yelled for everyone to get together around the fire where Mike was cooking. As Mike handed out the morning mush, Eve voiced her opinion on the matter. "I think we should send Mike, Corey, and Missy," she said. Brandon nodded his head, while the alliance of three that Eve had suspected earlier nervously did as well. Over at Gluboko, a long debate finally culminated with the selection of Kim, Sean, and Michael. The three delegates clad in maroon buffs walked to a location far from any they had been at before, where they encountered Adam. "Hello, Survivors," he said nonchalantly. "The Melkiy delegates are at another location with Nick right now. They already know about this, but you have just reached the latest twist in the game. You three have a very important decision to make right now- you must choose to either merge or switch. If either delegation chooses to switch, the two delegations will become the new Melkiy and the people you left behind will become the new Gluboko. If both delgations decide to merge, however, you will meet at a new location and become a new tribe. Now, you must decide." Kim, Sean, and Michael all voted to merge. Adam asked a question into his walkie-talkie, and announced that Melkiy had made their decision as well. "Last chance," he grinned. Kim became nervous, and finally decided that they wanted to switch. "That's good," said Adam, "because you were switching anyways. Melkiy decided to switch. Here are your new yellow buffs- head straight in that direction to meet with your new tribemates, who will lead you to your new camp." Meanwhile, a production assistant arrived at Melkiy camp. Eve, Will, and Brandon all approached, anxious to know how the switch had turned out. The production assistant handed each of them a new maroon buff, as well as a map giving the directions to Gluboko camp. Slightly annoyed, the three newest members of Gluboko donned their new buffs and took the map, along with their personal items. When they arrived at Gluboko camp, the three members that hadn't participated in the switch stood up, confused about what would happen. They began to hide what they were doing, but soon saw Brandon waving his maroon buff in the air. Hayley and Matt ran up to meet the three old Melkiys, and Will stepped up to explain what he had seen written on the corner of his napkin at the feast. Later, Matt stepped away for a moment to give a confessional. "When the switch happened and I found out I wasn't on Michael's tribe and I was on Hayley and Sue's tribe... I was estatic! A fresh start," he said. Meanwhile, Sue shaded her eyes as she checked the sun's position in the sky, then announced that it was about time for dinner. She began to prepare a meal as everyone congregated around the fire. Everyone ate silently, then turned in early to go to sleep. Over at Melkiy, the new tribemates were eating dinner and playing a game where they had to introduce each other. After an evening full of laughter and fun, they collapsed into a large heap and managed to pull themselves apart to crawl into their shelter for the night. When they woke up in the morning, Missy and Kim went to check for treemail. Yelling to the rest of the tribe, they brought back a sheet with a short message informing them that they had to meet an inland challenge site. When they arrived and stepped onto their yellow mat, they saw a large spiral in front of them with two arms. Each arm was color-coded for each tribe, and converged in the middle at a table. Once the new Gluboko tribe stepped up, Adam walked out from behind a nearby bush. "Hello, everyone," he said. "Melkiy, I'll need the idol back!" He took the idol and placed it on the table in the center of the spiral. "Now for the Immunity Challenge," he said. "Each arm of the spiral in front of you has 30 spaces. I will ask each of you 5 questions about a member of your tribe that started the game on the opposite tribe. If you get a question right, you can move forward a square. After 5 questions, the next tribe member will take over. After 30 questions, the tribe that is closest to the idol in the center will win immunity! Who's up first?" Missy and Sue stepped up to represent their tribes, followed in sequence by other members. Each member of Gluboko struggled to answer many questions correctly, but Melkiy's game paid off as each member was able to advance 5 spaces. After the last member of each tribe had gone, Melkiy had earned a perfect score of 30 and won immunity! The tribe clad in yellow jumped up and down in unison, ecstatic that they were all going to be able to stay around another 3 days. Gluboko simply walked away quietly, worried at what the next day and a half would hold. That night at camp, Brandon and Eve departed to gather some more firewood, leaving Sue, Matt, Will and Hayley back at camp. Matt started up a conversation with Will about life back at Melkiy. Will stated he thought he would have been the next out because of his aloofness earlier in the game. After hearing this, Matt rapidly suggested forming a voting bloc, between him, Will, Hayley and Sue. Will was enthusastic at the idea and satisifed Matt by telling him "he'd think about it". Meanwhile, the newly formed Melkiy was jubilant on being guranteed another few days in Kazakhstan. Sean was most excited about the switch commenting, "I know it's a little weird since just yesterday we were competing against each other but lets really try to beat Gluboko." However, there still seemed to be rigid tribal divsions between the former Melkiys and Glubokos. The six of them agreed not to discuss voting or strategies until after losing an immunity challenge. Unfortunetly this was not the case at Gluboko, espically for Will. He was feeling very divided between the two factions of camp. That morning he and Sue went out trying to catch fish on the remaining liquid parts of the ever-freezing Lake Balkhash. Despite being unsuccessful, the two began to form a close bond. On the way rowing back to camp, Sue suddenly told Will to follow his heart into the impending vote and to disregard what Matt had told him. When they returned to camp, they found Brandon and Eve waiting on shore for Will waiting to discuss tonight's vote. Brandon was adamant about sticking to tribal lines, but was still angry at losing immunity saying, "it stunk now its gonna be hard to vote". Despite this, Eve knew that anyone of them could be gone if one of them didn't go along tribal lines, and Will insisted they could not get rid of his new friend, Sue, and still feeling some loyalties to Matt, convinced Brandon and Eve to vote for Hayley at tribal council, even though he wasn't sure which way he was going to go. That afternoon, Matt called his hopeful voting bloc together, and assuming that Will was in with them, asked his group whether they would rather get rid of Brandon or Eve. Matt, being furtherly arrogant, made a referrence to them being the "final 4". This made Sue feel uncomfortable, because she was growing sick of Matt and Hayley too. She and Will had another conversation before heading to tribal council, where they realized that either Eve or Hayley would be gone, and discussed together which one they would rather see be voted out. They agreed that votes were going against Eve as a strategy move, while the votes for Hayley would be on the basis of her being an Australian and the quietest member of Gluboko. Sue and Will decided that they shouldn't make a decision together and to just wait to see what tribal council would bring. Going into tribal council, everyone was feeling nervous, espically Hayley, who felt votes could be for her, and Eve and Brandon, who still didn't know which one of them the former Glubokos were targeting. After standard questioning, Matt was the first to vote. In large letters he wrote "EVE" on his card saying, "My vote goes to Eve. This is purely a strategic move... nothing against Eve... I'm sure you're a great person..." Eve and Hayley quietly cast their votes and Brandon was next. He wrote "HALEY" on his card and said, "I hope everyone else votes her too just because we havent talked to her." Sue approached her placard next and stared at it for a long time. She wrote down a name and put down the pen. Will was next and he also stared for a long time before finally voting. Adam announced he would tally the votes and a few minutes later he returned back. He began to read the votes:
"That's two votes Hayley, two votes Eve."
Final Vote:
Adam announced, "We have a tie, three votes for each for Hayley and Eve. In the event of a tie, we go to previous votes cast, Hayley how many do you have?" She replied "zero" and then Adam asked Eve who said, "I also have none." Adam continued, "OK then, the next tie-breaker is a re-vote. In the re-vote, Sue, Will, Brandon and Matt will all vote, and they can either vote for Eve or Hayley. If there still is a tie, we will go into a further tie-breaker. Matt you're up." Matt approached the stand and kept his vote for Eve saying, "I couldn't BARE to vote for Hayley! Sorry Eve... you're a great person... you were just up against the wrong person at the wrong time!" Brandon was next and he kept his vote for Hayley saying, "My vote won't change." Will was up next and quickly wrote his vote down. Lastly, Sue was up. She stared at her blank card for even longer, really thinking about her decision. Eventually, she folded up her card and returned to the five other Glubokos. Adam announced he would read the re-votes.
"One vote Hayley, one for Eve."
"The first person voted out of the newly configured Gluboko is:
Hayley gasped as she was voted out. She gave Matt a big hug and glared at Sue. She got her torch snuffed and left. Adam told the tribe, "Well, I see you have had a very interesting first two days together. It seems new alliances and strategies are forming. I'll see you soon for the next challenge. You can head back to camp." The five of them left tribal council not knowing what the next three days would bring.
Next Week on SURVIVOR:
At Gluboko, Matt explodes at Will and Sue over the last tribal council.
SUE: "I tell ya he would have murdered someone last night."
Despite tribal divisions, good times are felt by Melkiy.
KIM: "I am SOOOO happy"
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