Losing an unprecedented tribal council individual immunity challenge that would determine whether he or fellow final remaining Ulong tribe member Stephenie LaGrossa would remain in the game, Bobby Jon Drinkard was eliminated from Survivor: Palau during last night's CBS broadcast of the show's eighth episode.
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As Day 19 dawned at Koror's campsite, the undefeated tribe was dealing with one of the drawbacks of continual victory -- discord over having had to live with the same large group of strangers for over two weeks. "I'm the one who has to go get firewood." Coby Archa, the 32-year-old hairstylist from Athens, TX, complained in private confessional. "I'm the one who has to keep the fire going. I'm the one has to boil the water. I'm the one who has to go hunt food. Those girls don't do anything!"
After the tribes assembled for the episode's reward challenge, Survivor host Jeff Probst explained that the challenge would be a traditional Survivor gross food challenge -- in this case involving the consumption of balut, a local delicacy consisting of partially formed duckling eggs. The winning tribe would receive 55 gallons of fresh water, a showerhead, soap, toothbrushes, and other personal hygiene products -- supplies sorely needed after eighteen days of island living.
With Koror's Ian Rosenberger and Tom Westman facing off against Ulong's Bobby Jon and Stephenie, the tribes breezed through four rounds of balut eating, creating a "first one to finish wins" tiebreaker showdown between Bobby Jon and Tom, Bobby Jon's Koror rival. Bobby Jon jumped out into the early lead by throwing all five balut into his mouth at once, however in the end, Tom's "one at a time" approach worked better, landing the Koror tribe yet another challenge victory.
Back at camp, tensions built when some of the Koror's members wanted to use the newly acquired water for its originally-intended showering purpose. Without even taking it to a vote, Tom insisted that the tribe save the water for drinking purposes, upsetting some of his fellow tribe members. "Nobody wants to speak up, and I'm not going to be that person. I could see that coming back to haunt me," confessed Jennifer Lyon, the 32-year-old nanny from Encino, CA.
Later, having wandered off to discuss their upcoming post-merge strategy, Tom and Ian theorized that their biggest threat would be Jen and Gregg Carey, Survivor Palau's "Romber"-like tribal couple. Viewers also learned that Tom, Ian, and fellow Koror member Katie Gallagher had apparently used Survivor Palau's initial days of communal living to establish a secret Final Four alliance with Ulong's Stephenie, who they were glad to see had managed to survive Ulong's latest Tribal Council. "Stephenie would be the wolf in the sheep's clothing that they wouldn't even see coming," Tom gushed in confessional.
Assembling for Day 21's immunity challenge, the tribes learned that the challenge would test both their physical and mental skills. Swimming out to a series of platforms, the tribes had to retrieve four bags of word scramble puzzle pieces then, after having collected all the pieces, assemble them back on shore and subsequently solve a word jumble embedded on the pieces. The first tribe to correctly unscramble the jumble would win immunity -- a prize Ulong desperately needed.
Despite remaining neck-and-neck with Koror's Coby and Gregg at the conclusion of the bag retrieval phase of the challenge, Stephenie and Bobby Jon fell well behind Koror during the puzzle assembly phase of the challenge, leading Koror to decipher "Victory At Sea" before ULong was even done finding their words -- and extend Koror's unprecedented immunity challenge victory streak for another episode.
Having lost the Immunity Challenge, Jeff informed Stephenie and Bobby Jon that since they were the only Ulong tribe members left, they would face off in an equally unprecedented Tribal Council individual immunity challenge.
Arriving at the evening's tribal council, Stephenie and Bobby Jon learned that the immunity challenge would require them to race to build a fire large enough to ignite their suspended torches. While Bobby Jon was the first to start a fire, in the end Stephenie managed to build the larger flame -- igniting her torch and making Bobby Jon the eleventh castaway to exit Survivor: Palau.
