Survivor Nicaragua - Premier Recap - Sept 15, 2010

Young at Heart

Last night was the first episode of Survivor Nicaragua and it opened with all the Survivors walking in the jungle. They are already in two groups so they think these are their tribes… “think” being the operative word.

Blonde boy Jud says there are monkeys everywhere and “it’s like real – no fences like a zoo.”
Jimmy Johnson is among them, he’s a two time Super Bowl winning coach and he thinks nothing could top it off better than winning Survivor.
Old guy Jimmy T says there is an older mafia boss looking guy who looks like he’ll push Jimmy’s buttons, he doesn’t like his buttons being pushed (Keep in mind, no one has even spoken to each other yet – calm down there Jimmy.)
One of the young girls, Alina, says there is an old guy with grey hair (Marty) who is pissing her off already – she hopes he tries to take a leadership role and gets kicked off quickly.
Brenda is young and single, very single, and flirty – she’ll use that if she has to.

The two groups come in from different directions and stand before the All Powerful Dimples – that is, Jeff Probst. Jeff asks them if they’ve already formed opinions on each other.

-Dark hair, plaid dress – Yve – says definitely you learn a lot from everyone walking in, not just by how they’re walking but how they’re watching the other people.
-Kelly B – young, dark hair, pants – tells us she’s had her right leg amputated and is hiding it so people don’t make assumptions about her abilities.
-Marty (grey haired guy) – says he wants nothing to do with Jimmy Johnson out there, doesn’t know why he’s even there.

Jeff tells them somewhere in this lagoon area is a Medallion of Power which can give you a huge advantage in this game – it is a tribal power, not individual. Go Find It! And they all take off running around looking for this thing. Brenda, young, long dark hair, sees the medallion up in a tree and quickly climbs up there and gets it. Her ‘team’ all high-5 her. - Jimmy J - I don’t even know your name but you done good.
-Alina noticed on the way back to Jeff that Kelly B has a limp, wonders if she has a hip problem.
-Marty thinks his tribe has the Medallion and that it’s huge for them to win something this early in the game – Jeff says it would be great if that were the case but… this isn’t how the tribes are going to be divided.

Jeff tells all those over 40 to go to one side and all those under 30 to go to the other. The young ones are jubilant – the oldies, not so much. The Older tribe is Espada and they’ll be blue – the Younger tribe is La For and they’ll be Yellow.
-Jimmy J wanted some of those young people to help carry him. Chase Rice (my yummy race car jackman) was really disappointed to lose the great Jimmy Johnson from his team.

Jeff then tells La For they have a decision to make – they can keep the Medallion for the unknown power or trade it for flint and fishing gear – whatever they don’t take will go to the other team.
-First they think they’ll keep it – NaOnka wants the POWER (I think I would have kept it, it could have been the best advantage ever, you don’t know!) – Jimmy J hopes they keep it so they’ll get the gear – then Jud says he’s much rather have the gear and fish/food it can provide them so in the end the youngies give up the Medallion and take the gear.
-One of the young guys – Shannon – says he doesn’t want to underestimate the old team but he sees no reason why the young ones should lose to them.

Espada – at camp
-Marty introduces himself to Jimmy J, pretending he doesn’t know who he is… right – Americans are football crazy – they all know Jimmy Johnson.
-Jimmy J says all the adventures he’s had in his past, he’s been the one in charge, here he doesn’t have that. He thinks some of them may be awe-struck by him and he’s ready to play on his superstar status – but he knows that some of them may resent him for it too.
-Marty’s filling Dan(mob boss guy) in, that that really is the Jimmy Johnson.
-Holly (swim coach with bad curls/headband combo like Olivia Newton John in the 80’s) she’s all hyper and comes up to Wendy tells her she likes her right away and trusts her and she’s with her all the way. (HUH?) She says being a swim coach she’s a really good judge of character and she’s usually right. (We shall see.)
-Wendy tells the camera she’s a little naïve, sheltered. She says she’s a ‘goat rancha’ so she’s not used to a lot of people. He goal is not to be voted off first but she talks a lot and her husband thinks she’ll be the first to go, she says she’s going to hide herself from her tribe and bite her tongue for a while.
-Marty tries to talk to her, asks where she’s from and from her western attire says she must like horses – she says yeah and walks away – he thinks she’s weird.
-Jane, dog trainer, grabs some coconut husks and a pair of reading glasses and has MADE FIRE within minutes! GO JANE! She says she’s 56 yrs old and many may write her off but she’s the kind to keep busy. It’s very important for her to win the money so she can pay off her farm and she lost her husband in ’09 so if she wins she hopes she won’t have to work so hard. Oh… Go Jane!
-Marty is so impressed with Jane making fire – says this tribe has just as much going for it as the young group does.

And I just gotta say, are they all from the South? There are an awful lot of twangs going on this season, let me tell you.

LaFor – at camp
-High 5’s all around. Sash, dark hair, lots of stubble – “We’ll dominate. Great beach, great waves, beautiful girls – doesn’t get much better than that.”
-Jud – Surfer dude blonde hair – “These are my people.” He steps on a twig and gets a huge piece stuck in his foot.
-Shannon – dark hair, blue eyes – says the guy with the long blonde hair (Jud) is a dumb blonde. I don’t think I’ve ever called a guy a dumb blonde before (they show Jud pick up a little crab which promptly pinches his finger and he freaks and flings it off) Shannon – He’s just retarded. (Not politically correct – but possibly true.)
-The other young guys take to calling Jud “Fabio” – Jud didn’t realize they were talking about him at first, thinks Fabio is kinda cheesy but whatever, he’s going to win so they can call him Fabio all they want. I guess I’m Fabio.
-Shannon and Chase are off on their own and Shannon says they are obviously going to be perceived as the Alpha Males so they should team up – Boston Rob and Russell could have run the place last time if they had teamed up.  Shannon says whatever they do they can’t let these girls take over – "we already get owned in marriage, there’s going to be a woman president soon (?) We have to sack up." (What? I’m thinking he’s not getting married anytime soon after this airs.)
-Kelly B is paranoid about her leg, she thinks everyone is staring at her and decides to call everyone together and reveals her prosthetic leg. They ask questions – it was a birth defect – someone calls her a RockStar – Jud/Fabio asks her how she makes it move… (She’s not a cyborg dude.)
-Shannon tells the camera he feels for Kelly B and if they voted today he’d give her the money but if they lose to the old folks, she has to be the first to go cause she’ll win in the end with the sympathy votes.
-NaOnka says she’s not giving her any special treatment – “You feel you can out run me, let’s race girl.”
They show Kelly B take off the leg and go out swimming with everyone – my friend Lynne said, “If Russell was there he would have thrown her leg on the fire.” Bah, hahaha! He probably would have tried.

Espada – Night
Jimmy Johnson is throwing up – and everyone knows it. (Oh Hollywood.) He says he over-did it, in the excitement of being there he just did too much getting wood, etc.
-Jimmy T says he’s got to be careful, he’s not a young man (Jimmy J, 66 – Jimmy T, 48 – but he looks older and he has bitch tits.)

Espada – Day 2
-Jimmy J is grousing to his tribe mates that he got zero sleep, bugs biting him all over, cold and sick (nice violin music playing for him, well played CBS.) He says he’s seen every minute of Survivor and he never imagined it was this difficult (then you weren’t really watching – wait until it starts raining on you too old man.)

La For – Day 2
-Brenda & Chase are talking, bond on football & Jimmy J – she was a cheerleader for the Dolphins and he thinks she’s cute. They flirt and he, for some reason, really trusts her (oh, no) he doesn’t want to have two alliances going though, he doesn’t want to be a dumbass this early on.
-Brenda tells the camera she’s used to having guys do what she says and for some reason Chase just came up to her and told her the guys have a little alliance going on (Chase, Chase, Chase, I’m shaking my head) She’s going to use that information to get her to the end. She knows Chase trusts her and he’s a really nice guy, but he’s clueless.
-Alina & Kelly B are going for water (I think) and find a clue to the hidden immunity idol attached to the water barrel. They read the clue it says they can choose to share it or not – they quickly say they’ll keep it secret – but they can’t decipher the symbols so they hide the clue in some trees to come back to it later.
-Alina tells the camera she’s not happy to kinda be forced into an alliance with the amputee girl because of this shared find. She wants to get rid of Kelly B because no will win against the sympathy vote (wait until they learn her Dad died in the earthquake in Haiti – she’ll be gone so fast her head will spin.)

Espada – Day 3
They get tree mail.
-Jimmy J says their team needs motivation and that’s one thing he can help with. He tells them all to take a knee (not really but he did tell them to huddle up) he tells his tribe that he knows there is no way a jury is going to give him a million dollars and he knows that, but he wants to make sure that one of them wins it, nothing would make him happier than to make one of them a million dollars (it was a good speech, very sly of the silver fox to take that tack, we’ll see how it works for him.)
-Tyrone – is giddy, “I just got a pep talk from Jimmy Johnson.”

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE
-LaFor comes in with the girls chanting and dancing – Espada not impressed.
-Two Kelly’s on the LaFor team, they decide the blonde Kelly with purple on the ends of her hair will be Purple Kelly and the other is the Gimp.(oh, I’m going to hell for that one.)

The Challenge – One person from each team will be at the top of their tower pouring buckets of water down 5 sections of gutters that 5 other tribe members will hold up to make a channel down to their barrel – when the barrel is filled (takes about 5 buckets full) a net with puzzle pieces will fall and the rest of the team can get busy solving the puzzle. First team to get the puzzle done wins immunity.

*Medallion of Power * gives the team holding it an advantage in the challenge. Should they choose to use it in this challenge it will then go to the other tribe in the next challenge. In this challenge the tribe with the medallion (Espada) is offered to have a full bucket load of water prefilled in their barrel.
They confer and figure this isn’t a very physical challenge, they are on an even playing field with the youngin’s on this one so they’ll save it for now. They do not use the Medallion.

-And they are off – both teams are working pretty well and getting good water flow into their barrels – the young ones seem to have a bit of an edge because the water pourer seems to be getting more in the chute – and LaFor is the first to release their puzzle pieces but Espada is right behind them. It’s all women working on the puzzle – Jeff says it’s wisdom vs enthusiasm... yeah, sure.

But it is so close… and La For (the young ones) wins the First Immunity!

Espada – Back at Camp
-Jimmy T – 48yrs old – says to the camera he feels knocked down by the game already. To some of his tribe mates he tells them he’s voting Jimmy J. Marty tries to interject and Jimmy T gets super agitated, “I’m not going to not be heard here” – he thinks Jimmy J is hornswoggling them all – of course he wants to win – then he says he’s got to calm down and storms off. (oooh kay then.)
-Jimmy J is off talking to Holly, he says they have to take out the weakest player, he thinks it’s either himself or Wendy but he thinks the team will be stronger if they get rid of Wendy.  Well this sends Holly into a tizzy because she impulsively made an alliance with Wendy on the first day – now what does she do?
-Wendy thinks she’s on the outs, no one’s really talking to her, she hasn’t made a bond with anyone, and Holly won’t even talk to her. She’s concerned.
-A bunch of them are huddled in a circle debating Wendy or Jimmy J and no one will commit or voice who they’d rather vote for… (Getting to know you, getting to know all about you…)

Tribal Council
Jeff – Let’s talk about first impressions. Jane, what’s the first impression people usually have when they meet you?
Jane – They might call me a Southern Hillbilly.
Jill (short red hair) pipes up – I call her Survivor McGuyer cause within an hour of hitting that beach she had a fire going, she can do anything here.
Jeff – So Jane, did you know you could do it?
Jane – Hell yeah, I knew I could do it cause I read an article that you wrote and you said why would anyone come play Survivor who didn’t know how to make fire. So she listened and learned how to make a fire, practicing for 2 months before she got there.
Jimmy T, how big were the first few moments for you in making those first impressions?
-Unbelievable you know, where I come from I have the power, when I talk people listen. And when you get here, you have people that are stronger and you have one of the greatest leaders in the NFL and it’s very frustrating, I’m just another player here. (Oh waaa.)
Jimmy J, when you hear something like that do you feel a target on your back?
-I’m not the boss but I’m going to be a target every tribal council, I know that. I’m not a threat to anybody, no jury’s going to award me a million bucks, I know that – I’m not here for the money, I’m here for the adventure (Tyrone looks at him sideways – uh huh) I’ll only be here as long as I can help this team be successful.
Jimmy T, can you buy that?
-No way, he’s here to win this thing and I think he can win the game. If he leads so well and deserves to win the game, the jury’s going to let him win that game.
-Jeff asks Marty something about everyone being leaders and was it a shock – Marty says something about being careful not to be too much of a leader, making sure you don’t lead in such a way that it gets you into trouble (spoken like a true executive.)
-Jeff asks for a show of hands of who thinks they’re in trouble – about half of them raise their hands. He asks Holly why she thinks she’s in trouble and she gives some gibberish answer about making an alliance right out of the gate and not agreeing with the weak links Coach laid out.
Wendy, why do you think you’re in trouble?
-I don’t think I connected very well with the people here. I was very busy but some people talked at the camp and I don't feel like I got a lot of that. They would be quite surprised if someone asked me some questions. Not one person here asked my age.
Yve – that’s one question I never ask anyone.
Holly – I asked you.
Wendy – no you didn’t.
Tyrone – you’re not supposed to ask a lady her age (yeah) He’s looking at her like, here comes the crazy. She’s 48 – Tyrone – sarcastic, you look so young.
Wendy, that’s typically not a question you’d ask, it’s interesting it has you tweaked.
It doesn’t have me tweaked, I just think it’s interesting – Maybe I should start to toot my horn, maybe that’s what I need to do… (Oh, here it comes… she’s got the crazy eyes) maybe I should have been talkative and talk talk talk and driven everyone CA-Razy – but I was quiet and that’s not me, I have the nickname the chatter box... (and then she lived up to it, she wouldn’t shut up – Jeff even tried to wrap it up but she asked if she could say one more thing) I can bring a lot to the tribe with my leadership, I’m friendly, my strength, strong-willed, people like to be my friend, people like to be with me, they trust me all the time - and trust is important... (everyone is shifting and uncomfortable and she just made up their minds for them… Bye bye Wendy.)

They Vote:
Wendy, 1 – Yve, 1 – Wendy, 2,3,4, 5 – First person voted out is WENDY! Her husband is psychic.
So with her leaving through the graveyard (yeah, she had to walk through head stones) that means that Krista H, Jeff T and Ryan H are out of the pool (but they get their money back.)

Wendy’s last rambling thoughts – I guess the whole game is fair, this is probably the only time in my life I was reserved with strangers, I know if I had been myself it would have worked out better (I wouldn’t be so sure) I didn’t hear that they wanted to get to know me better, I wish I could go back, maybe put me on the young people’s tribe.

Next week on Survivor – Holly is shown filling Dan’s shoes with sand and sinking them in the water. On the other tribe Jud is getting on NaOnka’s nerves and at Tribal Council the first question asked opens a bunch of whoop-ass (ooh, sounds great!)

Until next week,

Coleen