Scheming, conniving and strategy – but everyone’s really in it for themselves. And someone’s goose is cooked, even though they have no fire.
Hein returns from TC seething with fury about losing Nicola. He reckons that if doing no work doesn’t get you voted out, why should you make an effort? And, he says, he will start "scheniving!" This is a portmanteau word, combining the words “scheming” and “conniving”. By doing so much of the work, they've lacked the time to schenive.
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Amanda airily says it didn't matter who they voted off first, as they just wanted to break the Dyke-Nicola tight pair (which we never noticed in the footage we saw). She says she would have preferred to be rid of Dyke, but Nicola was the best strategist and thus "we changed our vote". It’s not clear whether she's talking for the conspirators as a whole, or using the royal "we". So much talking of "strategy", when what's mainly happening is a group of people who don't like or trust each other, each working to benefit themselves.
Creating conflict
Grandiose Rijesh boasts how he "got everyone to do what I want" and seems deeply impressed with himself. He naïvely hopes the others don't realise how he's pulling their strings, but he's hardly been subtle. Amanda and Ang are bothered by him, and are not accepting him as one of the girls. Amanda makes a huge fuss about asking whether she can scale a fish, more as a pretext for a grievance than as a genuine wish to work. She carefully creates conflict, while pretending to avoid it.
Across at Iban, Viwe is looking feeble and feckless (you rarely see a guy with so little feck), can't face any more coconut, and tells us the lack of food is really messing him up. Angie comments that he has no strategy, no alliances, and seems to be fading away. He's making the major error of being weak, and displaying his weakness.
All whine and no cheese
At Bajau, Dyke admits that he can be "rude or abrasive", or even "obnoxious", but that he felt their need for food was too urgent for him to bother about niceties. Exactly how the curbing his tongue would have prevented them from being fed, is not clear.
Useless Angie is sneering about "promises not being kept", though she has contributed nothing positive to her tribe at all. The negative nellies bitch and moan about everything, while looking as if they’re waiting for Room Service to arrive. Nichal the Hulk has been noticeably silent and hasn't said a single interesting thing so far.
Play the coconut
In the reward challenge for fire, they dig for buried coconuts, mainly as an excuse for wrestling. With Irshaad versus Rijesh, Mr Big Mouth is surprisingly ineffective in the struggle. When it’s Amanda versus Lorette, this is like Mud Wrestling, only in sand. Lorette is far stronger and more clever. In the Mandla versus Hein bout, Hein shows a keen sense of tactics, and eventually Mandla just gives up. Then its Angie versus Elsie, who, typically, leaves it to Angie to do all the digging, then grabs it, winning by a narrow margin.
In the final bout, Shrek, aka Nichal, confirms that he is all brawn and very little brain, and despite repeated warnings, is disqualified for cheating and breaking the rules, after the fifth time. It gave Mark a chance to utter one of the rarest instructions ever to issue from a referee's lips: "Play the coconut!" And so Iban has fire.
Elsie is furious that her group didn't win, and she swears like a street walker finding that someone else took over her corner. She's eternally bitter, grumpy and aggrieved. Now she's exaggerating the importance of her petty little victory, as "showing them I'm not exactly useless".
Wicker-work and bicker-work
Back at Iban, the snotty kid is back to her bad old habits, lolling around, sunbathing, and watching other people work. They're thrilled to have fire, but Angie grimly points out that they have nothing to cook on it. Lorette goes fishing. Mandla is worried about his knee, after the wrestling, saying,"I hate to be handicapped". Viwe continues to display his vulnerability, complaining that his hunger is making him "lose his mind".
Lorette gets a fish, and Angie archly comments, "It's always nice to eat good-looking food". She sounds like a cannibal on a health-food kick, eating only vegetarians.
Meanwhile Hein has caught some fish, and offers to spend an hour concentrating on trying to get fire for the tribe. Rijesh haughtily and effetely complains that all these unfulfilled promises really "get on his tits", two of his favourite parts. One wonders why Hein keeps making promises he hasn't met. Maybe a convoluted strategy, which consists of encouraging the tribe feel increasingly deprived of fire, and then to reap the rewards for having produced it.
Rajesh bets Hein R500 if he can make it, and the rest of the contestants decide to club together to pay him on their return, if he can provide fire. Elsie eventually reluctantly agrees to contribute only R 20. Hein calmly talking to camera says he's sure he can do it fairly quickly, but this might not be the right time.
A skull with earrings
Another water-borne immunity challenge follows. Mark looks as if has just freshly arrived from the hairdresser, and bears a fashionable amount of stubble. Notice that the immunity idol is a skull wearing earrings. Strategy is critically important here. In Round 1, Dyke gets the ball and passes it to Rijesh, suitably placed near the beach, and they win easily.
The other side is in disarray. Irshaad and Viwe get carried away with excitement, ignore the plan, and lose. Grant complains they have "the strategic ability of a twinkie". In Round 2 the girls end up as a brawling bunch, with Amanda just managing to keep contact with the ball and touch the finishing post.
Grant is getting into an alliance with Lisa and Angie, to get Viwe out, and Lorette wants to be rid of the freeloader, Lisa. Why does Grant keep struggling to save snotty Lisa? She has yet to be vital in any contest. Even here, Lisa admits she's content to allow Angie and Grant to do all the work to protect her. Seldom do you see anyone so persistently, defiantly, lazy. But Viwe has been consistently feeble and apparently isolated, and he presents the tribe with few reasons to keep him around. Back at Bajau, Hein produces the fire he'd promised, and they enjoy a gleeful feast.
The freeloader versus the fluff
At tribal council, Lisa has a fixed, nervous grin, and lies blatantly, insisting she has learned her lesson and is working virtuously. Lorette insists there’s been only a slight change, with much need for improvement. Viwe makes the good point that one may merely look busy, or actually be busy, and implies that Lisa attends only to looking useful.
Grant votes for Viwe, because he's weak, and a lawyer, as he "doesn't like them." (Isn't that rich, coming from another lawyer?) And so Viwe is voted out, and rushes off, apparently not even pausing to say farewell. Fire or no fire, he cooked his own goose.
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