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EPISODE 3 NOTES:

Here are a few important notes about Episode 3 and the rest of this story. Please be sure to read them so that you have a better understanding of what is going on.

1) Well, there is Episode 3. I personally feel that this episode is way better than last week's (although I still like both of them), and I hope that all of you will enjoy this one a lot too.

2) It looks like secret scenes are going to be a semi-permanent fixture in this season. And since this is Episode 3, it's fitting that there ended up being a record 3 secret scenes! The first one is more-or-less "filler," just discussing the previous Tribal Council (and then I realized that I had no room for "filler"). The second scene shows Jason finding the hidden Immunity Idol, which I'll talk about in a lot more detail later, and the third scene is an extension of Jason's plea to Erik before Tribal Council. I originally had this entire conversation in the episode, but it was far too long so I cut out some of the more sappy parts of it. Hope you enjoy these extra scenes. I wish I could have had a little something else from the Favorites, but it was simply not possible.

3) The rest of the notes will go through the whole episode in order, and I'll also answer a few questions that I think you might have about what is going on right now:

4) Yes, it really took Airai this long to start a fire. There had been a lot of rain since they won their flint, so they always had wet wood and they were never really able to maintain a fire until now. I debated who I wanted to have start the fire, but it seemed to work the best for Jason to start it. The other people I considered were Kathy and Mikey so that it would be a shock. In this scene, you should notice that Erik is watching with an "unimpressed" look on his face because he doesn't like that Jason is getting showered with praise.

The scene then goes into a little bit about the food situation, and focuses on Jason catching fish for the tribe and further cementing his position as provider. All of this builds to Erik's confessional as he expresses more jealousy about the tribe relying on Jason for everything and Jason being too much in the spotlight. He also contrasts himself with Jason, and the two have a brief conversation about Eliza, which Kitty Pryde1 brought up last week. You're psychic! For anyone who doesn't know Thing 1 and Thing 2 are characters from Dr. Suess that look the same and have long, blue hair. So this part of the scene served to show Jason and Erik sizing each other up, and it also brought in a little funny moment with Erik wanting to cut his "dumb hair."

5) The first of only two Malakal scenes focuses entirely on the women coming together to form an alliance of five.

Why did the women form an alliance, and what is going on at Malakal?

It wasn't in this episode shown but Ian and Earl were becoming pretty close, and their alliance members were starting to think very far ahead and feared that Ian and Earl would be very hard to beat in the end because they're both likeable and hard-working. I know that that all had to come from SPV because Earl and Ian were never shown. Their scene got moved into Episode 4 (even though it sortof seems like it should be the other way around), so what I decided to do was focus mostly on the women of Malakal this week, and then the other members of the tribe will finally be more prominent in Episode 4.

Anyway, Terry and Aras are still off on their own and Ami and Brooke let the women know that they didn't think the vote was from Eliza. Eliza obviously wanted a women's alliance because she would be in with a group other than just Brooke. Sherea just wants to get rid of Terry and Aras; Ruth Marie's position remains unclear, and Brooke, as we saw, is still a little bit skeptical about the whole thing but she's agreeing to it for now. There's not really much else I can say about the scene except that I wish I could have had more from the Favorites.

6) For the Reward Challenge, I wanted to have something that didn't involve a physical aspect and then a puzzle aspect at the end of it because I know that most of the other challenges have been like that, so I thought this challenge would work well. The only thing that makes it difficult to come up with challenges is that there's still nine people on each tribe. The challenges in Episode 4 (especially the Immunity Challenge) are a lot better. Anyway, I still liked this challenge and I liked the moment when Kathy made a comment about Mary having a hard time fitting through the fence. Like many challenges, this is one that would have been better to watch on TV.

7) When Malakal won, there were a few names tossed out for who should go to Exile: among them, Jason (the most athletic Airai), Joel (the supposed leader according to Jason), Mikey B (who Jason said could never survive on his own). Ami suggested that they shouldn't let someone else get another clue to the idol, and Earl wanted to weaken Jason. The fact that Jason got sent sortof implies that Earl's opinion is valued among the tribe - since Earl got his way. Jason chose Ruth Marie because he knew that he had a head start at the clues and he figured he'd be able to get to the idol before Ruth Marie, whereas if he picked Eliza again, they'd both be on a level playing field. I think it was a smart choice for him (imagine that, after he screwed up with his tribe last episode!).

What "Erik moments" were cut out of the Reward challenge?

At first, I had Erik volunteer to go and then Ian said "No volunteers" but I got rid of this. I also had Jeff pointing out that Erik cut his hair at the beginning of the challenge, and him saying he cut it for Eliza, and then Eliza says "What is he talking about?!" But I thought that might be a little too over-the-top, so I cut it out.

8) The next Airai scene is pretty self-explanatory. It shows the reaction of some of the Fans who disapproved of Mikey's comment, and we also get two confessionals from him about it where he says that he was just having fun and he hopes it messes with the Favorites. This was another (minor) layer to Tracy vs. Mikey, and Natalie was also brought into it a little bit, but her comments were directed more directly at Mikey, whereas Tracy's disapproval was more general.

9) Then we get to the second Malakal scene, which is quite short. It gives the reactions of some Favorites to Mikey's comment, and then Eliza also makes a comment of her own that puts her under the microscope again. Terry and Aras were, of course, the perfect people to talk about that, and then Brooke got a fairly intelligent confessional to close the scene about making sure that you portray yourself positively to those around you. Not much to this scene, but just enough to keep the Favorites from being totally ignored. Sorry to Earl and Ian for the lack of confessionals - and Eliza, but she didn't really need anymore in this episode.

10) The next scene is Exile Island, and Jason once again gets to talk about the survival aspect and living outdoors (as if he hadn't said enough about it already), and then the rest of the scene focuses on Ruth Marie's take of her position in the tribe, and Jason/Ruth Marie looking for the idol. Initially, the secret scene of Jason finding the idol was actually included at the end of Exile Island so that you knew he had it. When the episode was way too long, I decided to not reveal that he had it, so that the ending would be more of a surprise. I had to alter a few other things that Jason said (such as his confessional before Tribal Council, where he previously confirmed that he had the idol) so I didn't give it away, and hopefully it worked out better this way.

11) This next Airai scene is definitely one of my favorites in the entire episode. I don't think it will come as a big surprise based on the first two episodes that Erik hatched his plot to take out Jason. I really liked the idea of Natalie's "challenge" but it's another thing that I had to debate for a long time about whether or not I wanted to keep it in the episode. It was ultimately inconsequential, so I thought I might have to take it out when the episode was so long, but I decided to leave it because it was fun and nothing like that has ever happened before. And then when everyone is supposed to pretend like they're voting for Tracy, the plan starts to go downhill because she knows that if Jason did use the idol, she would go home. She also doesn't want Jason to go because he's one of the tribe's strongest members, so she hopes that Jason found the hidden Immunity Idol so they can switch up the game. Initially, you would have known that Jason had the idol already, but by me getting rid of that part, it left more of a surprise for later.

12) The Immunity Challenge is basically the same as the Episode 3 Immunity in real China except that I had to add another leg to it (rowing) since there were three extra people to fit into the challenge. Like the Reward Challenge, I don't think it was the best challenge I've ever done or anything like that, but I hope it was at least readable for you. The main thing to notice is that Terry and Aras did the best in the challenge because they know their necks are still on the line, so they are fighting their hardest in every challenge, and doing pretty darn well!

13) So the Fans lost again, which I think was incredibly obvious based on the fact that they got way more air time than the Favorites did. Sorry about that, but with the amount of story going on at Airai, it really was necessary. Joel's confessional reiterates the plan to vote off Jason, and you should notice that it's really Erik-Mikey-Joel who are at the forefront of all the strategy going on, whereas Mary-Alexis-Natalie are just being pulled in for numbers. Last week, I said that the tribe consists of loose pairs (Erik-Joel, Mikey-Mary, Alexis-Natalie), and the reason I said this is because Mary has more of a connection to the three guys and although it wasn't shown, she was pretty instrumental in securing Alexis-Natalie as votes for Jason.

14) Then we get into the scene with Tracy and Kathy, where they get Jason in on their own plan. Again, in the original version, Jason confirmed that he had the idol here, but I decided to edit that out to leave it more open. So with this plan, the tribe is losing two of its potential votes for Jason and things are starting to shift. Now it's looking like the vote will go as follows:

VOTING FOR JASON: Erik, Joel, Mikey, Alexis, Mary, Natalie

VOTING FOR ERIK: Jason, Tracy, Kathy

But then Jason and Erik have their heart-to-heart" on the beach where Jason pleads for his life and says that "this is [his] dream," etc. and even though Erik said before that he keeps his emotions out of the game (except for Eliza???) and he's not going to be swayed by feeling bad for someone, Erik DOES start to feel bad for Jason and a little bit more reluctant about voting him out.

So Erik goes to Mikey and explains that Jason somehow knew (they never figure out who told him and it wasn't really important), and that he feels bad for Jason. They figure that Jason might vote for Erik because of it (although they don't suspect Tracy's plan), so Mikey suggests that the alliance of three guys, Erik-Mikey-Joel, should really vote for Tracy incase Jason has the idol, so that Jason's vote wouldn't be the deciding vote. This way, Erik also does not have to vote for Jason since he was starting to feel bad about it. They decide not to tell the girls because Mikey says they'll get confused and screw something up. So now, if everything stays the same, it's looking like the vote will surprise everyone and be the first three-way tie.

VOTING FOR JASON: Mary, Alexis, Natalie

VOTING FOR ERIK: Jason, Tracy, Kathy

VOTING FOR TRACY: Erik, Mikey, Joel

15) The other variable in this is Jason's actual Immunity necklace from the first challenge that he now has to pass on to something. The three guys figured that Tracy would be the last person Jason would give Immunity to since she was the other supposed target (and again, they don't know about her plan with Jason and Kathy). It's actual kindof funny and ironic that Erik said if Jason gave Tracy Immunity, it would be the dumbest thing he's ever seen on Survivor because Jason would definitely go home. I had written this entire scene over a week before the episode where Erik made his huge blunder and gave up Immunity, so it was very ironic that the real Erik basically did the same thing that he said Jason would be stupid to do.

Anyway, right before Tribal Council, Erik in my story figured he should consider the possibility and he told Joel that if Jason DOES give Immunity to Tracy, that they have to vote out Kathy. This is perhaps the most important thing in why everything fails: Joel asks Erik if Erik told Mikey that, and Erik says "No, not yet." But since they're leaving for Tribal Council, you don't know if Erik actually had a chance to say it to Mikey or not, and that's what ultimately leads to Erik's demise.

16) I really, really like this Tribal Council for a lot of reasons. I have a few things I want to say about it: when Jason said that he expected to get eight votes, that was him being dishonest so that nobody suspected there was another plan going on with him, Kathy, and Tracy. You also have to notice the reaction shots from Alexis, Mary, and Natalie, who had no idea that Jason knew about being voted out. Then Erik basically admits it again in front of everyone, and the three young girls get more confused looks. Then Alexis openly says that she doesn't know how Jason knew about him being voted out and also wants to know why the women were not told that Jason knew. This shows that the girls are not too happy about being left out of the loop. Erik comes up with a pretty good answer of not having time to speak to everyone and tells them to stick with the plan. Remember, though, that they think EVERYONE is voting for Jason, so they're going to be surprised again when votes for Kathy come up. Then Joel gets a bit of negativity with his answers about doing what's best for himself (by voting out the biggest threat) even if the tribe continued to lose. When he said that he guarantees the tribe will be willing to vote out the weak links next is just him being slippery with his wording. With Jason gone, Tracy and Kathy would be the next two voted out (like Tracy said in her confessional), so they really would not be re-evaluating their strategy.

17) Jason giving his Immunity to Tracy was essentially what ensured that Tracy's plan worked out fully and I'll explain why. Erik never had a chance to tell Mikey to vote Kathy in this case, so he didn't know what to do, he still didn't suspect another plan, and he just voted for Jason. Had he voted for Kathy, it would have been a 3-3 tie for Kathy and Erik, everyone would revote again except for those two and then it would have been 5-2 for Kathy to be voted out. Also, if Jason gave Immunity to anyone else, then it would have been a 3-3 tie for Tracy and Erik, and the revote would have been 5-2 for Tracy to go. So Jason would have obviously been safe regardless because of the hidden Immunity Idol, but him saving Tracy combined with Mikey's Jason vote was what ensured that Erik went home.

18) So that is the first of many blindsides to come this season. I wanted to have the hidden Immunity Idol played early on in the game (I know James used it in Episode 5 of my China, but I wanted earlier than that), and since it was used so early, another idol will appear on Exile Island so that someone else can find it again.

19) I mentioned in last week's notes that there were some big parallels to events that actually occurred on the show. One of them was Jason finding the hidden Immunity Idol, obviously. The other one was the whole tribe plotting to blindside him while he was away on Exile Island. I said that the outcome wouldn't necessarily be the same though, because their attempt failed this time when Jason used the idol. So it's interesting because last season James and now Jason both used an idol in my story after not using it on the real show. Weird. And I guess you could even say that Tracy being strategic was another parallel to the real show, but I figured she would be like that from the beginning.

20) That's it for Episode 3. I hope you all enjoyed it more than the last one. I think the Malakal scenes were the weakest, but the Airai stuff is top-notch, I think. Episode 4 begins with the aftermath of the vote and there's some conflict between Natalie and Mikey B. Both tribes are more balanced in Episode 4 in terms of how much they are shown, and on the Favorites, one of the big things that happens is Sherea wants to throw the Immunity Challenge but she doesn't really have the approval of her tribe. So we'll see how that turns out…

My sincere thanks to you for reading this episode. I'm amazed to still have so many people reading and commenting into the seventh season. I would greatly appreciate it if you could spend a few minutes to leave some comments on the episode and let me know what you thought. Thanks in advance for all the replies!

Best regards,

- Guatemala fanfic

Hi Brandon. Thank you so much for your comments on the episode, and for replying so quickly. That might have been record time! Anyway, I enjoyed reading what you had to say and you made lots of great points, as always!

I liked this episode much more than the last one. Again, it was predictable with which tribe would go to TC, but you leveled that off with the strategy going into the vote and, considering Jason's stupidity, we didn't really know what would happen. Last week when you told me that there would be more Ruth Marie, I came in to the episode thinking she was going home, so I have to thank you for scaring me like that. :-P

Thank you. I'm glad to see that you liked it much more than Episode 2 - I figured that most people would. I did know that it would be predictable which tribe would lose Immunity (sorry about this), but I thought it was okay since there were still a lot of directions that the would could go in the end. It could have easily been Jason, Erik, Tracy, or Kathy going home. Oh, good to see you got a bit of a surprise with Ruth Marie - she still has some more game left in her!

Mary keeps stealing the show for me. It's always the shoes with her.

Yeah, as much as I would like to say there was a hidden meaning to it, I just saw it as an opportunity to go back to her losing her shoes in Episode 1 and it really meant nothing more significant than that. I also promise more from Mary soon too!

A nine, veering on a ten. I just can't give an episode a perfect rating because then I can't really say any other episode was "the best". We're only three episodes in, so I'll just stick with 9s and 8s for now.

Yay! This is a nice change from last week. I understand what you mean about not giving out a ten (yet), and I actually agree because there are some episodes left that I feel are better than this one still. Episode 4, to me, might be a little bit better.

You've pointed out a few times that the editing has been a little uneven, so I don't even know if I could use that for my winner pick. Ian and Earl both have strong cases to win, they just haven't been shown. Right now, I'll say Tracy, if she can keep it up.

It's not necessarily to do with the winner that I say it, it's just that I don't like to have characters that go ignored for a long stretch, but this season with the Favorites winning so much and having 20 people, Earl and Ian just haven't been in the main story much. And even on the Fans tribe, Mary, Alexis, and Natalie have been kindof underutilized - but they appear more in Episode 4. As a side note, Ian has the worst edit I've ever given up to this point. He only has 1 actual confessional.

I want to think Mikey goes home, but that would be four men in a row, and you might be trying to stay away from that

Well, in Fiji, I had four women voted out first, so it is possible. I'm usually not conscious of it actually, and I don't try to keep or break certain patterns for the most part.

Thanks for your Episode 4 predictions and for filling out the Popularity Poll. Nice to see a lot of 7s and 8s!

Thanks again for your comments. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, and it was great to see almost immediate feedback! Hope you have a great day!

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Hi Avilsta. Thank you very much for commenting on the episode so quickly. I enjoyed reading your thoughts, and I'm glad to see you enjoyed the episode so much!

I think this episode was awesome, I can't really comment much since I pretty much scrolled past some sentences to see the TC results cause idk if it was going to be a 3-3 tie between Kathy (or Tracy before she got immunity) and Erik and how the votes would go down. Kinda hoping Tracy/Kathy/Jason manage to pull in some of the girls but I think probarly they won't swing :(

Thanks. It's nice to see the episode described as "awesome." And I'm glad you were that excited to see the ending that you scrolled right to it - hopefully you'll go back and check the parts you missed though. It might be important for things in future episodes. T/K/J would definitely have to pull in votes if they're going to want to stay in the game. Or they could win Immunity too, which Jason should be able to help with.

Probarly the whole Tracy/Kathy telling Jason bout him going, Jason confronting Erik, Erik trying to spilt the votes since it really make me want to just scroll down straight to the TC results :X

These are the parts that I liked too. Basically all the stuff after the Immunity Challenge was really good, I thought. The scene with Jason confronting Erik was actually more sympathetic and emotional, but you can see that in the secret scene. BTW, the reason I didn't make an uncut episode for you this week was because it would have ruined the surprise at the end when I showed Jason finding the idol.

9.5 (I will give it a 10, but I usually don't like to be OTT, so I'll give the closest, 9.5)

Thank you very much. I appreciate the 9.5, and you'll be glad to hear that I think there's still some better episodes to come!

I'd prob say why Erik didn't ask Mikey bout the vote earlier (idk if he did or not, but from what Jeff said, it seems like he didn't), as if he did it could have been a 3-3 tie and I really think it would prob be purple rock like what happened at the TC Denise was voted last season and it would be intersting if Joel/Mikey got it

Erik only thought of the possibility of Jason actually giving Tracy Immunity right before Tribal Council, and he happened to be with Joel at the time. They were leaving right after that, so he never had a chance to tell Mikey to vote Kathy in that case. You're right that it would have been a 3-3 tie in that case, but in the revote, everyone except Kathy and Erik would have got to vote again. It would have then been a 5-2 vote for Kathy to go (with only Jason and Tracy voting for Erik), so there wouldn't have been a purple rock here.

Very interesting predictions for Episode 4. Thanks for posting them! I think you might be onto a few things with them...

Thanks for filling out the Popularity Poll as well - good to see a mix of high and low numbers!

I'd prob not give out good edgics as I skipped a few parts and my faves are a little mixed in so those I love might get P when they're supposed to be N and vice versa, so if please don't read if you don't want to be PO-ed :X lol

No problem at all. Do your ratings however you feel they came across and I will still count them just as much as everyone else's even if I may not agree with a few of them. Sometimes my intended ratings are completely off, so it really doesn't matter what I think.

There is one that jumps out at me though, which is the INV1 for Natalie. Natalie had two confessionals, a Tribal Council question, and was involved in an important scene, so she could not be INV1. To be INV1, you have to have virtually no content in the episode, so Earl is a more likely choice as you said. He was not shown in the episode at all, whereas Natalie was. Even Alexis will have to get an UTR1 or 2 because she was shown at Tribal Council. So if the person is not in the episode at all, then they'll get INV1. I hope that makes sense.

Other than that, your ratings look good to me. Great job!

Thanks again for commenting on the episode. I'm really glad you liked it, and I hope you continue to enjoy the rest of the season. Great to have you commenting along for this one. Have a great day!

Hello neleh rocks. Thank you so much for all of your positive comments. I'm really happy to see that you enjoyed this episode so much, especially after not liking last week's... I think that was just a fluke. The rest of the episodes should be closer to this one in terms of how good they are.

It was amazing. I don't think that there has been an episode this good since the Fiji finale. I honestly think this is one of my top 5 episodes. It accomplished a few things. 1.It made me fall in love with Jason and I am now positive that he will get to the final 4 but not win. 2.I now officially care about the fans and you might even say that I am rooting for them. I am now rooting for Jason and Eliza the most followed by Sherea and Tracy.

Thank you very much. It's great to see such positive comments. Strangely, I was just thinking about the Fiji finale last night and how I thought it was really good. I'm glad you think this one was up there, and I'm very happy that it's in your Top 5 episodes. That makes me think what my Top 5 would be... Hmm... Anyway, I honestly wanted Jason to be very positive in this episode (he was supposed to be sympathetic and a little misunderstood), so it's good that that worked. With the Fans losing two Immunities, I had to develop them more as characters, whereas you already know the Favorites, which is why they haven't gotten as much attention.

Tribal Council without a doubt and Erik never getting to meet Eliza.

Thanks. I really love the Tribal Council too. I love the three girls being confused and Erik telling Alexis to stick with the plan and they'll talk about things that night, and then Erik goes home. I felt like I could have given him a lot more story, but I ultimately think that Jason sticking around will be better. I feel bad for Erik though because I did like him on the show and I wish he could have stuck around. Had I planned this out now and not a few months ago, he probably would have went far.

10

Thank you!!! I appreciate that a lot!

I wanna ask Ami why she wouldn't try a different strategy the second time around.

Thank you for this question. A women's alliance seems to be a logical thing based on what's going on at Malakal for a few reasons: 1) The women already have a 5-4 numbers advantage; 2) Having those women in the merge would give all of them a better shot in individual challenges than going up against guys like Terry or Aras; 3) I would have to agree that Earl/Ian would be tough to beat at the end (even though they haven't been shown a lot); 4) Ami is potentially in a great position if she gets in with Brooke and Eliza as the Top Three in that alliance, which is what I do see happening right now. So I think it's a pretty good thing for the women if it's able to work out.

Thanks for your Episode 4 predictions (great job), and for filling out the Popularity Poll. I'm glad to see a lot of 10s for your favorites.

Thanks again for commenting. I really enjoyed reading what you had to say, and I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. Have a great day!