Amy O'Hara becomes the eighth castaway to exit 'Survivor: Guatemala'

Having failed to convince her tribe to vote off Survivor returnee Bobby Jon Drinkard instead of herself, Survivor: Guatemala's Yaxha tribe voted out Amy O'Hara, a 39-year-old police sergeant from Revere, Massachusetts, during last night's broadcast of the CBS reality show.


Survivor: Guatemala's seventh episode began with the Nakum tribe returning from its Night 15 Tribal Council in which the tribe opted to keep loudmouth Judd Sergeant and instead evict Margaret Bobonich, the 43-year-old family nurse practitioner with whom Judd had frequently -- and heatedly -- quarreled.

After returning to camp, Judd thanked his tribemates for taking his side in the dispute. "Margaret got voted out, thank god," Judd confided to the cameras. "She just pushed my button... I couldn't take it any more so I kinda had a little outburst and put her in her place." "Hopefully, I'll be laughing my ass to the bank, and she'll be home making chicken wings or something."

Over at Yaxha, the tribe appeared to begin Day 16 less worried about its previous evening's eviction of Brian Corridan and more focused on the open festering sores that they had developed as a result of the previous day's giant ball rolling Reward Challenge competition. Since he had made what was in hindsight, a seemingly foolish decision to compete shirtless in the challenge, Bobby Jon appeared to suffer the most severe injuries. However Brandon Bellinger (who competed in an almost equally exposing muscle shirt) had also developed numerous upper-body sores of his own. "Oh man, that's disgusting," exclaimed Amy, who after giving it her all in the challenge, was also suffering from some bruising and scratches.

Later in the day, the tribes assembled for the day's Reward Challenge, a strange competition in which four of each tribe's members would have to progressively wrap themselves together by wrapping four 30-foot lengths of fabric around their bodies. As they began each new piece of material, one additional castaway would join the group so that although the challenge began with only one castaway wrapping themselves in a 30-foot piece of fabric, each tribe would eventually have four members entwined in the final piece of fabric. Each tribe would also be able to select a "winder," a fifth castaway who would help the four other tribe members wrap themselves. After all four castaways were bound together, the group would then proceed to attempt, one fabric segment at a time, to unwind themselves from each other. The first team to successfully wrap its castaways together and then unwind and cross the finish line would get a zipline canopy tour of the Guatemalan jungle, followed by a giant chocolate feast.


Although Nakum took the initial lead in the competition, Yaxha eventually caught up, resulting in the two tribes being nearly dead even after the tribes finished wrapping their four castaways. However once the tribes began unwinding -- a task with which Amy and Jamie Newton, each tribe's "winder," couldn't help -- the competition became a blowout, with Yaxha easily winning the challenge after Nakum's still-bound trio of Rafe Judkins, Stephenie LaGrossa, and Lydia Morales took a tumble and struggled to stand back up.

Then next day, Yaxha surprised Nakum by making an unprecedented pre-merge trip to Nakum's camp and inviting them over for a pool party to celebrate Danni Boatwright's 30th birthday. "Hi, it's my birthday, so we figured we'd invite you' all over for a pool party," Danni chirped after Nakum's members journeyed down to their dock to investigate Yaxha's shouts of "Nakummmmmmm."

Although both Jamie and Cindy Hall didn't like the idea, Nakum agreed to paddle over to Yaxha's camp. "I don't like these people, so I don't understand why you' all are going over to hang out," Jamie commented during the ride over.

"I didn't want to go, I thought it was stupid, it's a long way, it's hot, and I just found it unnecessary," Cindy explained during her confessional. "Why should we go and hang out with the people that we want to get rid of, but you know, I have to show an interest in what the tribe wants to do, so I went."

Meanwhile, Stephenie explained her motivation for wanting to go -- the promise of getting to eat some of the chocolate that Yaxha still had leftover from the previous day's Reward Challenge win. "That was the main reason I was coming, they said they had chocolate for us," she confessed. "I was like 'Hell ya, I'll go in your pool and I'll eat your chocolate,' it was unreal!"


The next day, Amy and Gary Hogeboom discussed how as Yaxha's last two original Yaxha members, they were likely to be targeted for elimination should their tribe lose the upcoming Immunity Challenge competition. "Brandon, Danni, and Bobby Jon... were tight when they came over here, [so] they are probably leaning toward Amy... so Amy is vulnerable if we loose our next Immunity," Gary later admitted during confessional.

In the process, Amy also made it clear that she wouldn't be happy if Danni's claims that "Gary Hawkins" (the fictional name Gary was using in the game) was actually a former NFL quarterback later proved true. "If you are and I found out after, I am going to beat you down," the police officer joked. Later, Amy made it clear that while she'd made her comments in jest, she was only half-joking. "I want people to give me their word, so I hope Gary doesn't disappoint me," she later told the cameras. "If Gary is playing me, I'm going to kick his ass."

Amy's comments amused Gary -- who based on his confessional comments, may have been thinking that Survivor would never reveal his real identity when the show aired. "I'm trying to keep a straight face, I'm trying not to let her read me... but she will never find Gary Hawkins in Grand Haven because there is no such thing as a Gary Hawkins in Grand Haven so she could be searching for years!"

Later, the tribes convened for the Day 18's Immunity Challenge -- a challenge that would require three members of each tribe to retrieve a dozen giant puzzle pieces from a sand pit, after which two other members of each tribe would be tasked with assembling the puzzle pieces. The first team to assemble the puzzle would win Immunity. Although the tribes remained close throughout the puzzle retrieval process, Nakum eventually managed to pull away a bit, allowing Nakum assemblers Stephenie and Rafe to get what turned out to be a critical head start on assembling the puzzle and winning the challenge for their tribe.

Back at camp, Amy realized that her tribe's loss meant that she was likely to be voted out at the evening's Tribal Council session and approached Danni for suggestions as to how she might remain in the game. To Amy's surprise, Danni suggested that the tribe could instead vote off Bobby Jon, who along with Stephenie, had previously competed in last season's Survivor: Palau. "I thought that wasn't fair at all, for those two to come back, because it's such a big advantage for the two of them," Danni told Amy.


Sensing a chance to save herself, Amy approached Gary with the suggestion that they team with Danni to oust Bobby Jon. However although the two had been longtime game allies, Gary's reception to Amy's idea seemed lukewarm at best.

"Danni and Brandon are running the show, and if they're looking for loyalty, I need to show them loyalty... [but] if they decide to go with Bobby Jon [then] I'm with them -- Danni's your player," Gary told Amy. "If you got Danni, you got me."

Meanwhile, apparently fearful that eliminating Bobby Jon in a 3-2 decision that didn't include Brandon's vote would result in her already outnumbered tribe entering the merge without Brandon's loyalty, Danni approached Brandon with the idea of voting off Bobby Jon. "This is definitely the hardest decision and I want to make sure we'll all together on everything," she explained. "I don't want any of them to go home and I don't know what to do."

Brandon understood (and apparently even agreed with) the reasoning behind saving Amy, but still lamented the idea of turning his back on Bobby Jon. "She's probably more deserving of being here than Bobby Jon, and that's what's getting to me," he told Danni. "You form alliances and then you end up voting out people that may deserve to be here more than other people in your alliance."

"I'm somewhat conflicted because here I have my alliance with Bobby Jon and everything but I believe these other people, Gary and Amy, maybe deserve to be here a little bit more because he's already had his shot," Brandon explained during confessional "This is probably the most complicated spot I've been in the game and it's really taking a toll on my mind... you're doing this stuff so that you can get one step closer to a million dollars and it's like you're selling your soul or something."


In the end, Brandon apparently decided to not "sell his soul" and instead remained loyal to Bobby Jon. With Danni also apparently not comfortable with the idea of voting off Bobby Jon without Brandon's vote (or Gary not comfortable voting for Bobby Jon without Brandon's vote), Brandon's decision had a domino effect, resulting in Amy being voted out of Survivor: Guatemala in a unanimous 4-1 vote.

After Amy became the eighth castaway voted out of Survivor: Guatemala, Survivor host Jeff Probst had another surprise for Bobby Jon, Danni, Gary, and Brandon: rather than return to their Yaxha camp, they would make a middle of the night journey back to Nakum's camp, where the tribes would merge and decide on a new tribe name.