CANOE -- JAM! Television - TV Shows - Survivor3: Africa: Episode Four: Linda lynched

Giving advice is what Linda Spencer, the Assistant Director of Career Services at Harvard University, does best. Like many of us, however, Spencer isn't too terribly good at following her own. Over and over during her stay in Africa, Spencer preached about 'Survivor' being "just a game". How everyone should just relax and take in the extraordinary opportunity they've been given to visit such a wondrous country. Spencer couldn't bring herself to do that. She let Samburu's irritating Gen-X Alliance get to her and lost her composure. Unable to hold her tongue any longer and engaged in full "mom mode", she lashed out at them. Spencer paid for that maternal outburst at Tribal Council becoming the fourth person voted out of 'Survivor: Africa'.

Spencer's eviction from last night's show was overshadowed by a unusual announcement featured in the promo for next week's broadcast which stated that "every friendship" and "every alliance" will be "shattered" by a twist in the game. "The Survivors thought they knew the game but the game has changed forever," proclaimed the teaser warning viewers not to miss the first fifteen minutes of next Thursday's show.

What could it all mean, you ask? Well, before 'Survivor: Africa' even took to the airwaves the Internet was rife with rumours that the Survivors would be thrown a curveball early in the game. Word has it that some members of the Samburu and Boran tribes are going to be removed and put into a third competing tribe. The reasoning behind this decision supposedly stems from the course that 'Survivor: The Australian Outback' took. If you recall, once the Kucha and Ogakor tribes merged, Ogakor won the first post-merge Tribal Council and from there voted off Kucha one by one each week. The thinking is that the producers are hoping that the introduction of a third tribe will curtail such a string of predictable outcomes from happening again by further fragmenting the alliances. Will this Net rumour become fact like so many others have in the past? We will just have to wait and see next week.

The remaining Survivors at the start of the broadcast were:

Samburu Tribe

Boran Tribe

Samburu Tribal Happenings (Night Nine)

"I am still here and smiling big," shouts Lindsey happily. Having survived the Tribal Council showdown against the Geritol Gang, the Gen-Xers have a brief group hug in front of the oldsters. Geritol looks resigned to their fate and appear defeated. Lindsey is really ticked that "those bastards" targeted her at Tribal Council. She begins acting all haughty and such. Don't "mess" with her when she's "pumped", she warns. Silas and Linda tell us that Lindsey's approach was all wrong and not appreciated. Silas understood where Lindsey was coming from but rubbing the victory in wasn't appropriate. Frank puts things neatly in perspective. "Damn you, Carl, for leaving me here with a bunch of misfits," he groans.

Boran Tribal Happenings (Day Ten)

Boran wakes up to another healthy heaping of sticky, yucky corn meal cakes. Clarence is worried that Tom isn't eating very much because he can't stomach them. Shirtless, Tom is shown trying to shovel the sludge into his mouth. What does he think of the corn meal cakes? He answer rhymes with "grits". Fed up with eating stuff he wouldn't feed to his goats back home, Tom decides to attempt to climb a 50-foot tall fruit tree. Clarence looks on shouting encouraging words like...Get your country ass out of that tree! Foiled by the laws of gravity, Tom is forced to admit defeat. Clarence and Tom throw rocks at the palm trees hoping to knock some loose. An errant throw by Clarence pings Tom in the head. The duo manage to score two fruits but it takes them a half an hour to peel them and what's left isn't enough to feed a rat.

Samburu Tribal Happenings (Day Ten)

The remaining Geritol Gang members have chosen to teach the do-nothing Gen-Xers a lesson by not doing any chores at all and letting them sleep the day away. Linda comes back with the tree mail and transforms into psycho mom. Get up! Rise and shine!...she says in a demented Carol Brady voice. Linda informs the Gen-Xers that the Reward Challenge is in thirty minutes. Rubbing their eyes and mumbling under their breath, the Gen-Xers awake. Like he is in some sort of football huddle at the championship game, Silas gets down on one knee and addresses the troops. They should come together as a team, he says. Yeah, right. The Geritol Gang ain't buying that crap. Linda terms Silas' gesture as "cheesy".

Linda crouches down in front of Lindsey mockingly praising her. Lindsey can't believe that Linda has snapped. Brandon informs us that one minute Linda is a great nurturer and then the next she acts like a "crazy woman". Linda hugs all of the Gen-Xers but Lindsey won't reciprocate. Lindsey tells Linda she isn't ready to do that. Linda respects Lindsey's space. Linda advises Lindsey that her anger is really covering her sadness. Lindsey does cry and brushes Linda off. Lindsey tells us that she was crying because it finally hit her that the Geritol Gang had singled her out.

Reward Challenge

In relay fashion, each member of the tribes must climb a rope web and recover food items wrapped in a sack or flash. Once a tribe has gotten all of their 12 items back across the finish line, they are declared victorious.

Reward

All of the 12 food items (ranging from olive oil to tomatoes) they retrieved during the challenge.

Result

Things are pretty even until it is Kim Johnson's turn. She takes so long that two of Samburu's members are done before she is.

Winners: The Samburu Tribe.

Boran Tribal Happenings (Day Ten)

Kim feels badly that she blew another Reward Challenge for the team. The others are sympathetic (especially Ethan) and console her. They gather around and heap words of encouragement on her but you just know that they realize she is their weakest link. Lex tells us privately that he doesn't think Kim is up to the physical challenges. No kidding, boss. Kelly says it is awful to feel like "losers".

Samburu Tribal Happenings (Day Ten)

Winning the food has boosted the tribe's spirits. Kim would give all the food up for water. Brandon clues in that nobody has bothered to fetch and boil some water. Clumsy Samburu ends up breaking all their water pots in the process of refilling their supply. Frank notifies us that this was his plan all along. To allow the "comfort level" to drop so that Gen-X would start contributing and stop sunning themselves on rocks. Kim complains that her tribe can't "get it together". Gee, I wonder why.

Boran Tribal Happenings (Day Ten)

Even though they won that stash of water last week, Boran feels it necessary to fetch more. They see some baboons frolicking as they do so. Face to face with some sort of mean looking Bison, Boran stop dead in their tracks. Petrified, they make a commotion to drive the brute away. Lex tells us that it was a sobering experience and that they need to learn to respect the land as danger is everywhere. Episode Four and still no animal attacks? What gives? I thought this was "wild Africa" not "mild Africa".

Samburu Tribal Happenings (Day Eleven)

Drill sergeant Frank rouses the Gen-Xers before dawn for a march to the water hole. Silas tells Frank he has hit the "snooze button". Frank replies that the Gen-Xers have "hit the snooze button most of their lives" and it is time to get up. Lindsey tells Frank to shut up.

Boran Tribal Happenings (Day Eleven)

Ethan and Kim fetch the mail. Kim is upset she can't compete like the young ones. She feels she is dragging her team down.

Immunity Challenge

There are two identical camps with fences and a hut. The challenge is to move the camps piece by piece up a hill (200 yards) to identical but empty camp sites. Once the pieces are there, they must be rearranged to mirror the original set-up. First tribe to complete the task wins. Two tribe members (deemed architects) will remain at the new camp site to put the pieces together while the others act as the "transporters". Each camp's flag must be the last item put in place.

Reward

Immunity from Tribal Council.

Result

Samburu sits Teresa out. Brandon and Linda act as Samburu's "architects" while Kelly and Kim are Boran's.

Winners: The Boran Tribe.

Samburu Pre-Tribal Council Happenings (Day Twelve)

Frank carves the names of his children and his wife into his Tribal Council torch. He feels that they are with him in spirit and must honour them in this way. Linda wishes Frank a happy birthday. She tells Frank that they could have used Carl in the Immunity Challenge. She thinks that Frank will make it to the merger.

Boran Tribal Happenings (Day Twelve)

Kim is happy that she has been spared. She cries with joy. To show their unity, Boran climbs a small mountain together. Looking out over the plains, Tom says this is what the "promised land" must be like.

Samburu Pre-Tribal Council Happenings (Day Twelve)

The tribe talks openly about the division in their ranks. Geritol wants Gen-X to say who they are voting out tonight. Gen-X won't grant the request. Gen-X has the gall to ask Geritol to cast all their votes for Lindsay. Geritol denies the request. Linda tells us that she doesn't trust Silas. That there is something "odd" about him and that she doesn't want him to win the game. In an arrogant statement, Silas says that the producers might as well hand him the prize money now.

Tribal Council

Silas explains to host Jeff Probst that the tribe has come together since the last Tribal Council. Frank says the divisions are still there. Lindsey tells Probst that the same situation would have occurred if Geritol had come out of the vote on top. She admits to making many mistakes so far because she is a "sensitive" person when feeling hurt. Brandon reaffirms his friendships with Gen-X.

Lindsey votes but we don't see what name she wrote. Lindsey comments that it is "just a game" and it is that person's "time to go". No other comments or votes are shown.

Final Voting

Parting Comments

"Well, it has been an interesting twelve days. I think our vote tonight, for the older people's alliance, this is very significant. Honour is very important. To us, integrity is very important. To me, it is not whether you win or lose. It is how you play the game. I've grown. I've learned. It's been great." - Linda Spencer.

Episode Rating: A-.

Powell's Comments

When Gen-X realized that the Geritol Gang cast their votes for Silas instead of Lindsey to increase his "votes against", they were visibly angry. Linda told the tribe to "play nicely" as she left. In a odd moment, Probst decided to give some advice to Samburu saying it wasn't in their best interest to go into the merger as a divided tribe. He alludes to Silas' comment that the "game can change minute to minute". In my opinion, Probst went well beyond his role on the show by doing this. Not a fair or smart move on his part at all. He is there to ask questions, supervise the challenges, host the show and observe not to interject himself into the game in any manner. With this episode, Silas has taken over the role of Richard Hatch. Interesting that they aren't giving Lex much airtime too.