Dan Berry becomes the sixth castaway to exit 'Survivor: Panama'

Done in by the Casaya tribe's ability to prevent tribal outsider Sally Schumann from attending Tribal Council, the four members of the La Mina tribe's alliance was forced to vote out one of their own, resulting in Dan Barry, a 52-year-old retired astronaut from South Hadley, MA, becoming the sixth Survivor: Panama -- Exile Island castaway to be eliminated from the game


Last night's CBS broadcast of Survivor: Panama -- Exile Island's sixth episode began with the Casaya tribe having returned from the Night 14 Tribal Council session in which Bobby Mason, falling victim to his tribe's women's belief that he couldn't be trusted to remain loyal to them once Survivor: Panama's tribes merged, was voted out of the game via an unusually fragmented 3-2-1-1 decision.

After the tribe returned to camp and settled in for the night, Shane Powers -- who had originally wanted to boot Bobby but later been overruled and promised Bobby he wouldn't vote him out before the dysfunctional tribe once again changed course and decided to target Bobby (got that?) -- lashed out at Danielle DiLorenzo, blaming her for Bobby's elimination and telling her he wanted out of the four person alliance of which they were both members.

"We made the wrong decision tonight, Danielle," Shane remarked as the castaways attempted to fall asleep. "And we made that decision because of your personal feelings. Period And it's a bad, bad, bad thing. Bruce is falling apart. It's not his fault, but he's 58 and nervous."

"Shane, shut up," Danielle responded, feeling it was inappropriate that Shane should be openly discussing how Bruce Kanegai had been other target the alliance had considered while Bruce was also lying there trying to fall asleep. "Shane, I don't know where all this anger is coming from [but] I don't appreciate you directing it toward me, so can we just talk about it tomorrow because I don't feel like getting into a huge fight with you , it's not worth it."


Continuing to talk despite Danielle's request, Shane made it clear that after spending nearly two full weeks in an incredibly unstable four-person alliance with Danielle, Courtney Marit, and Aras Baskauskas, he'd had enough.

"I want to get out of the alliance with you guys but I can't do that unless you guys allow me to take my son's name back," Shane, alluding to his previous decision to swear his son's life on his allegiance to the alliance, continued. "I don't trust you guys are going to make the right decisions, I'd rather go into the merge a lone wolf than have to deal with you and Courtney."

The next morning, Cirie Fields -- the tribal outsider who despite Shane's Day 6 warning that she'd be the next Casaya member voted off, had not been targeted in the Casaya's tribe's Night 14 return to Tribal Council -- excitedly made sure that Courtney, who'd spent the night sleeping out on the open beach, learned of Shane's announcement.

Upon learning of the news, Courtney made it clear that if Shane wanted out of their alliance, she'd have no problem sending him home. "I'm like to release him from the game... we could, easily," she remarked back to Cirie. Later, Danielle joined the conversation and the three women -- deciding to team up with Bruce -- had formulated their plan.

"He's next [to go home], that's just the bottom line," vented Danielle. "He's just a lunatic, he's lost his mind, he's just a freak... if that's how you feel about it, then fine, get out of the alliance -- you're off anyway. Who cares, see you later. Bye!"


Meanwhile, over at La Mina, Sally was very aware of the fact that should her tribe lose one more Immunity Challenge, the tribe's all-male four-person alliance would be sending her home. "These guys think that they know how the game works, but I'd be very surprised if the all-man's club ended up lasting as long as they think it would," Sally remarked during confessional.

Later, Dan decided that given how close he and younger allies Austin Carty and Nick Stanbury had become, he wanted to let them in on the secret he had already previous shared with fourth alliance member Terry Dietz -- the fact that prior to retiring, Dan had been a NASA astronaut. "I never thought I'd even meet an astronaut, never mind live with one. I mean, the guy's looked at the earth from space, he's an incredible guy," Nick later confessed to the cameras. "Dan Fuego is a stud, I told you from the get go," Austin, using the nickname he'd given Dan due to his habit of taking care of the camp's fire, added in a confession of his own.

Back at Casaya, Shane again approached Danielle and Courtney asking them to let him "take his son's name back." Tired of his wild mood swings and already having discussed his elimination, the women responded immediately. "Done," shouted Danielle. "All you do is lash out," remarked Courtney.

"You guys do nothing [around camp]," Shane fired back. "Honestly, you have these outbreaks and you just lash out at [people]... I'm sick of it, I don't wanna hear it, don't lash out at me again, I don't need it," vented Danielle. "You just talk so down to people."

Although he was the fourth member of the alliance, Aras was also glad to see the women grant Shane his wish. "I need to get out of this alliance, because I'm in it with an idiot and I don't want to be in it with Shane," Aras explained to the cameras. "I don't trust that he's going to keep his mouth shut, I don't respect the way he treats other people, and I don't want to be a part of that. Truth be told, I think it's great that the alliance has broken up, because it's a paper tiger. There's no power to this alliance anymore."
Following his latest confrontation with Danielle and Courtney, Aras had little doubt that Shane would last much later in the game. "I feel like Shane just wrote his walking papers and unless he's somehow able to find a way to apologize to the girls and say, 'Look, I really didn't mean it,' I feel like that guy is going to go home."


After receiving Tree Mail informing them that the next challenge would be a special combined Immunity and Reward challenge, the tribes assembled for the special dual challenge. Dividing themselves into two groups, each tribe would first select three tribe members to, one member at a time, race out into a field and retrieve four puzzle pieces. Once all four puzzle pieces were gathered, two other members of each tribe would be tasked with correctly assembling the spinning puzzle.

The first tribe to correctly solve their puzzle would win immunity from that evening's Tribal Council session, a reward trip to a nearby Panamanian fishing village, and the right to decide which one of the losing tribe's castaways would depart for Exile Island. However since the challenge was a joint reward/immunity challenge, the winning tribe's Exile Island decision would have one additional important difference -- since the losing tribe's banished castaway would be spending the night on Exile Island, they would not have to join the rest of their losing tribe at the night's Tribal Council session.

La Mina was the first tribe to retrieve all of its puzzle pieces, with Terry returning with the tribe's final piece just as Shane was leaving to retrieve Casaya's fourth piece. However although they had a head start on assembling their puzzle, Dan and Sally struggled to figure out how to align the spinning pieces, allowing Casaya's team of Cirie and Bruce to catch up and win the challenge for their tribe. Deciding to disrupt the best laid plans of La Mina's men's alliance, Casaya selected Sally to be banished to Exile Island.

Realizing Casaya's decision had just saved her from certain elimination, Sally was thankful to have been banished to Exile Island. "Exile Island is my saving grace... today it's actually saving me," Sally confessed after her arrival. "This is a gift to be here, so I'm thrilled."

In the meantime, Casaya arrived at the fishing village where, after enjoying a bountiful feast and the company of the friendly villagers and their children, Shane (after first managing to acquire a cigarette off of one of the villagers) apologized to Danielle and attempted to mend their relationship.


"The reward kind of brought us together, but that's the thing, it's kind of a double-edged sword for me," Cirie -- ever mindful of her place in the tribe's pecking order -- later noted. "But now, it gives Shane time to kinda back track... in a way, I almost wanted to lose, because I really felt like Shane was going."
Back at La Mina, the tribe's four men were agonizing over, with Sally no longer an option, who to vote off at the evening's Tribal Council session. Assuming that Terry would remain loyal to him and Nick and Austin would remain loyal to each other, Dan began openly discussing how he expected the vote to come down to a 2-2 tiebreaker -- a discussion that led Nick, apparently already aware that Terry planned to avoid a tiebreaker scenario by breaking his alliance with Dan, to approach Terry and, in unspoken words, urge Terry to inform Dan of his intentions.

Claiming he was "putting on his Joe Torre hat" and "making a managerial decision" for the strength of the team, Terry approached Dan and informed him of his intention to join with Austin and Nick and vote him off. Although upset to be leaving, Dan, blaming himself for the tribe's failure to win the dual Immunity/Reward Challenge, accepted Terry's decision. "Hey, my fault, my bad... I got to take responsibility for that," Dan responded. "As much as I want stay and be here, hey, someone screwed up... I need to take the hit."