Survivor Gabon - Recap Four

Survivor Gabon Week 4 Recap - WARNING! Possible Show Spoilers In This Column! Okay Mark Burnett, where’s our twist? In my humble opinion, a sub par episode this week. Coming attractions from last week fail to deliver and the weekly twist never happened. Thank goodness for a couple of decent challenges and Ace’s mysterious, here-again-gone again accent.

I have been watching Survivor since it inception back in 2000. All 17 seasons have had their peaks and valleys. Except for the challenges and waiting to see whether or not Ace was going to use his British accent, week four was definitely a valley for me.

Where were the wild, rogue elephants crashing into the camp that we were teased with in last week’s coming attractions? Where was GC going AWOL and not showing up for a crucial Immunity Challenge? That too was tantalizingly dangled in front of us last week.

I will tell you where – NO WHERE! GC did go AWOL – for about 10 minutes while he rowed around contemplating his future on Survivor. As far as wild elephants attacking camp, Matty sees an elephant eating leaves across the river, so he and Ace row over and marvel at the pachyderm. Fortunately there was still Ace’s intriguing accent to monitor.

Last week was the first time I noticed that Ace doesn’t always “remember” to use his accent. At the beginning of tonight’s episode he used it. Later when GC starts freaking out and goes missing, Ace’s accent goes missing as well! It seems like when he talks to the camera he uses it, but when he is dealing with the other members of Fang (rhymes with thong) he doesn’t use it. Check it out next week and see if I am not right.

Thankfully, both challenges were pretty good this week. Flying fruit highlighted the Reward Challenge. You name it, it flew! Melons, apples, pineapples, and guavas – I think I even saw a quince. Needless to say, the fruits were not all indigenous to Africa, but who cared.

Survivors from each tribe attempted to throw various pieces of fruit past the other team, through raised openings to a waiting tribe mate who would deposit the produce in a basket. Want to know what they were playing for? An herb garden (can you say Gia pet?), salt, oil and all the fruit your team caught. Of course Kota won and of course they sent Sugar to Exile Island. Ho hum…

The Immunity Challenge entailed throwing large, weighted wicker balls down an extremely steep hill into goals with varying point values. Sounds simple enough, right? Not so quick! Each team had a “goalie” with an over-sized snowshoe trying to block the other team’s efforts. Not bad, eh? But there was more! The “goalies” were blindfolded and were told where to go by a teammate. Pretty good stuff.

Oh ya, Kota won, yawn. Before Tribal Council, GC tells the other Fang members that he has had enough and wants to be voted out. Yawn, been done before. At Tribal Council, despite the air headed Sugar coming just short of admitting she has the Individual Immunity Idol, Fang obliges GC and votes him out of Gabon.

Hopefully next week the action will pick up a little bit. If not for the challenges, week four was a real snooze fest. I can only play the “Where’s Ace’s Phony Accent” game so long! Until next week…From Gabon.