Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

Analysis of "Survivor: Palau" Episode Six, by CBSNews.com's Ellen Crean.

The trouble is, because Koror has hardly ever lost, the audience has not had the chance to get to know its members as well as they've gotten to know the Ulongs. Generally, people show their true colors during times of adversity, or at least when they're a little stressed out.

But that actually brings us to Janu the Jungle Goddess, who appeared to have a small nervous breakdown in the last episode, after Koror endured a stormy night. Yes, Janu had the breakdown and guess who talked her down from the ledge? If you said Fireman Tom (aka Apollo), then you'd win a Pringle and a mai-tai, if there were any left.

But that comes later.

The episode began, as usual, with the spotlight on the Ulongs, who were trying to pull themselves together after an odd Tribal Council that saw them voting Angie out of the game when they had fully intended to get rid of Ibrehem. (In a twist of the rules, Koror was permitted to vote immunity for one of the Ulongs, and they chose Ibrehem.)

Ibrehem confided to the camera that he was grateful that he had been finding quiet time for prayer. Since he is Muslim and worships Allah, he observes daily formalized prayer sessions.

Over at Koror, meanwhile, everyone was in fine spirits and feeling energetic. Fireman Tom reported that each tribe member was working on a project to improve camp life. At the same time, Coby sarcastically proclaimed, "Camp Koror had Craft Day" and went on to criticize Katie for working on a primitive form of lanyard.

Then the camera lingered on what appeared to be a mean-spirited sock-puppet show, re-enacting Ulong's pain at witnessing Koror's stew-and-root-beer feast the previous night. The creative force behind the puppet show? Lanyard Katie.

But there was no more time to visit Koror, because everyone had to go to the reward challenge, where the prize at stake was a party with mai-tais and Pringles, and a visit to Jellyfish Lake. There, it is possible to swim with thousands of jellyfish that have lost their need (and ability) to sting, since they live in fresh water.

It was ready-aim-fire at the challenge, the goal being to shatter a total of eight tiles and, of course, Fireman Tom was the first to hit one. But
Stephenie of Ulong hit a tile whenever it was her turn and for the first time, Ulong managed to win a challenge. As Stephenie said, "We've been losing so much... Basically it was a whole new chapter for us."

Around the same time Ulong was enjoying their Pringles, mai-tais and their swim with the jellyfish (which looked like platoons of little balloons), the players of Koror were suffering as much as they have ever suffered in this game, as a massive rainstorm with thunder and lightning and gusts of wind hit their camp.

Even with their professionally built shelter, it was a rough night. The next day, reported Janu, "I felt very alone and scared... It kind of just lingered on into the day."

As she huddled, weeping, in the hammock, Fireman Tom provided comforting words such as "It's a bad place to be, but let today be your bad day" and encouraging words such as "You already passed your worst fear of going home early."

And Lanyard Katie? Why, like any good teammate, she was also providing words of... oops. Well, actually, she was cattily confiding to the camera: "I thought I was the Drama Queen. But apparently not."

Then it was on to the immunity challenge. Each team was given a footlocker containing the opposing tribe's flag and a lot of rope, with instructions to make the footlocker as impenetrable as they possibly could, using only the rope that was provided.

To Ulong's everlasting shame and regret, they paid attention when James claimed to "know a few things about knots." In fact, he spoke of a magical knot that would only tighten up whenever anyone tried to loosen it. And Bobby Jon told the camera, "He took the lead and he acted like he knew what he was doing. So I followed."

Yes, Bobby Jon, and we suppose if James jumped off a cliff, you'd follow him then too!

During the competition, it appeared that James was so confident of the magical knot that he didn't feel that he had to do much work. He even spent a few minutes trying to fix his toga, which appeared to be falling apart.

Well, of course, the alleged magical knot turned out to be nothing but a myth. And maybe more people would feel bad about that if James had not shown an especially unappealing side of his character when he talked to the camera shortly afterwards, saying that Ibrehem "was meant to go last time and by the grace of Allah, he didn't go. Well, my God says he is (going) today."

Meanwhile, Stephenie was busily alienating Allah, Buddha and many other gods by lying to Bobby Jon about her vote at the last Tribal Council. It seems that Bobby Jon was under the false impression that James had written his name down, when really James had not but Stephenie HAD.

"I feel really bad, lying about it," Stephenie told the camera. "But if I had told him the truth, they would have voted me out tonight."

And Bobby Jon (probably also teed off about the magical knot) felt that since "James threw a dart at me, I'm gonna throw one at him."

But not before Jeff Probst threw a few darts of his own! After the four Ulongs shuffled into place at Tribal Council, Jeff called James on the carpet, scolding him for the tribe's performance at the immunity challenge: "I sat there and watched. Steph and Bobby Jon swam out. Ibrehem took a leisurely stroll to the middle, doing what, I'm still not sure. And
you sat back there, messing with your skirt for two, three, four minutes... That's when you lost the challenge."

Then Jeff turned to Ibrehem and asked him, "Have you ever thought in these first few days out here, 'Maybe I'm just not cut out for his game'?" (Ibrehem's answer was no.)

Jeff also pointed out to Stephenie that after the vote, there would be only three Ulongs. But that did not keep Stephenie from saying, "The fact remains that I want to win at least one immunity. I don't want to leave here being that tribe that never won immunity. That's, like, a disgrace."

When they voted, there were two ballots for James and two for Ibrehem, leaving Stephenie and Bobby Jon to vote again. This time, they both voted for James.

Next week: Gregg 'n' Jenn heat up, Bobby Jon catches a big fish, but Tom catches a shark.
By Ellen Crean