'Survivor: One World's' merged Tikiano tribe votes Jonas Otsuji off

Survivor: One World's newly-merged Tikiano tribe eliminated Jonas Otsuji, a 37-year-old sushi chef from Lehi, UT, from their tribe during Wednesday night's seventh episode of the CBS reality series' 24th edition.


Jonas was voted out of his tribe at the season's seventh Tribal Council session, the first session for the mixed-gender tribe after the 12 members of the Manono and Salani tribes had merged at the conclusion of last week's episode.

"So I came here to go big or go home and I went big and now I'm going home. (Laughs) But you know, I gave it all I got and the fact that I got voted off kind of sucks, but at least they said I was a good fisherman and a good cook," Jonas joked following his ouster.

Survivor: One World's seventh broadcast began on Night 17 with the newly-merged tribe arriving back at camp following the previous Tribal Council in which they discovered Colton Cumbie had been medically evacuated and therefore removed from the game.

Alicia Rosa, a 25-year-old special education teacher from Chicago, IL, felt "screwed" because Colton had declined to give her his hidden Immunity Idol upon exiting the game. She thought she had to scramble to find or renew an alliance and come up with a new gameplan and strategy.


Alicia -- who had intended to vote Christina out of her former Manono tribe when Colton was still in the game -- was deflated because she realized Christina Cha, a 29-year-old career consultant from West Hollywood, CA, had a shot to stay in the game much longer now that both tribes were merged and she could find new loyalties. 

As a result, Alicia believed her best bet would be to align with her previous all-female alliance -- which consisted of Kat Edorsson, a 22-year-old timeshare representative from Orlando, FL; Chelsea Meissner, a 26-year-old in medical sales from Charleston, SC; Kim Spradlin, a 29-year-old bridal shop owner from San Antonio, TX; and Sabrina Thompson, a 33-year-old high school teacher from Brooklyn, NY -- who she had become close with and trusted when the game originated as a men versus women format.

Although the four girls were members of the former Salani tribe, she hoped to re-join forces with them and then wipe out the men one by one.

On Day 18, Jay Byars, a 25-year-old model from Gaffney, SC, said he didn't want to live with Greg "Tarzan" Smith, a 64-year-old plastic surgeon from Houston, TX, again and felt his former Salani tribe was going to stick together and slowly eliminated the former Manono tribe because they had the numbers.

Besides Jay, Chelsea, Kim, Sabrina, and Kat, the former Salani tribe also consisted of Michael Jefferson, a 30-year-old banker from Seattle, WA, and Troy "Troyzan" Robertson, a 50-year-old swimsuit photographer from Miami, FL.


In addition to Alicia, Tarzan, Christina, and Jonas, the former Manono tribe also included Leif Manson, a 27-year-old phlebotomist from San Diego, CA.

Tarzan had a different mindset than Jay following the merge, because he was convinced the guys were going to move forward as a solid alliance and work against the girls. However, he quickly found out that wasn't the case and then sought out Mike to see if he'd be interested in offering up his loyalty to the men only.

Mike seemed to consider the opportunity at first because if he chose to stick with an all-male alliance, it would turn into six men versus six women and Manono was down two members so they needed him to defeat Salani. However, Mike's agreement with Tarzan was insincere.   

"He feels that if the guys stick together and use Alicia, that the guys will be there in the end. I don't trust any of those guys. I don't like any of those guys, so I told Tarzan I'm in, but I'm not dealing with Tarzan. Tarzan drives me crazy," Mike said.

The merged tribe's castaways then met Survivor host Jeff Probst for a Reward Challenge. Before Jeff explained the rules, he told everyone they would be required to split up into two teams again at random to compete in the challenge. He divided the castaways into Alicia, Jay, Sabrina, Chelsea, Christina and Troy versus Mike, Leif, Jonas, Kim, Kat, and Jay.


For the challenge, Jeff instructed both temporary tribes to each have one member race through a series of obstacles, dig up a bag of puzzle pieces and then race back to the start to let the next person go. Once a tribe collected all four bags, the remaining two people would then use those pieces to solve a puzzle.

The first tribe to solve the puzzle would win the challenge and receive an afternoon with pizza and beer, along with a secret note.

Christina and Troy squared off against Tarzan and Jonas to solve the puzzle and both pairs were pretty much neck and neck. However, Alicia's team ended up winning Reward and Jeff instructed them to read the secret note after they finished eating their pizza.

After Alicia, Jay, Sabrina, Chelsea, Christina, and Troy enjoyed their pizza, they then read the note and learned there would be another hidden Immunity Idol back at camp. The catch was that only those six castaways who had won the challenge would know about it.

"It makes me nervous that the idol is still out there. My biggest concern is for someone on the Manono tribe to find the idol going into the next vote and messing up our numbers, because we can't have a Salani go home," Chelsea said.


Meanwhile, Jonas told Mike his alliance had to organize their plan and weren't sure what they were going to do yet, but then Mike revealed to Jonas that he and Tarzan had a "secret meeting" in which Tarzan told him Alicia was the next target. Jonas, completely unaware that getting rid of Alicia was going to be their next move, approached Tarzan afterwards and asked him why he told the "least reliable guy" their potential move.

Tarzan told Jonas he acted immediately because they needed numbers to stay alive in the game, but Jonas was frustrated because not only did he not know about voting off Alicia, he was not consulted before Tarzan decided to share alliance information with an outside questionable tribemate.

"You tell him right before the vote, not two days before. If he's playing both sides, what is he going to do? He's going to tell the women who we're voting for and then we're f-cked. This is my point. We need to consult as an alliance before we start blabbing," Jonas told Tarzan.

Jonas then asked Tarzan when the plan changed and why he was the last guy to know. Tarzan told him he explained the plan two days ago, and Jonas was furious because he did not remember ever having such a conversation.

"You are such a confusing assh-le, really. I can't believe you. You're sitting here accusing me of something right now," Tarzan said.


"Stop interrupting me," Jonas said.

"Listen to me..." Tarzan interjected.

"Stop f-cking interrupting me, okay? I'm tired of your f-cking bullsh-t, and you telling me -- I'm not even in the f-cking loop," Jonas explained.

"Well you know what? There's so much confusion here, I think I'm going to drop out of the tribe and you guys just continue without me. That's what I'm going to do. I'm dropping my allegiance with you guys because every time I try to tell you something, you contradict me and don't remember what I say. I'm done with it," Tarzan explained.

Tarzan told Jonas he didn't like him anymore, nor did he ever want to speak to him again. Tarzan said he'd fall on a sword if it meant turning on Jonas because he simply "couldn't look at Jonas' face anymore." He then went on to say he would never tell someone something if he didn't mean it and it wasn't sincerely from his heart. 

An angry Jonas then wished Tarzan luck and seemed to care less about his fallen alliance with his tribemate. Jonas was frustrated Tarzan was discussing a plan to Mike without his consent, because he believed Mike might turn on them at any point and he couldn't be totally trusted.


On Day 19, Troyzan began looking for the hidden Immunity Idol early in the morning and ended up finding it. He said it could be worth a million dollars and possibly take him very far in the game.

Later that day, the merged tribe met with Jeff, who asked what name they had come up with for their tribe. Troyzan explained they called themselves Tikiano, which meant god and year -- the year of the gods. Jeff then explained the rules to what would be their seventh Immunity Challenge, but first Individual Immunity Challenge of the season.

The castaways learned that they each had to perched themselves on a small log while balancing a ball on a wooden disk. At regular interviews, more balls would be added to make the task more difficult. If a ball dropped at any point or a castaway fell off the perch, he or she would be out the challenge. The last person standing would win immunity and be safe from the vote at the next Tribal Council session.

Tarzan was the first castaway out of the challenge, and he was then followed by Christina, Mike, Chelsea, Kim, Alicia, Jay, Jonas, Sabrina, Leif, Kat, and finally Troyzan. Troyzan won immunity and the rest of the castaways had to figure out who they should vote out of their tribe.

The following day, Troyzan felt solid with his Salani tribe and powerful in the game because he had immunity in two forms.

Meanwhile, Chelsea and Jay talked about remaining a united Salani tribe, and they decided they should get rid of Jonas or Leif first.


"The way I see it, we keep it Salani versus Manono and we should take out Manono's strongest people first," Chelsea said. "I think Jonas is their strongest player right now, which I hate because he's a great cook, great positive attitude, fun to be around, but Jonas I'm thinking, is going to be the next to go."

Kim then told Alicia they were planning on voting Jonas out because he was the biggest threat although he was a nice person.

"For tonight's vote, we want to vote Jonas out since he's the biggest threat and we want to keep Christina and Alicia around just in case we wind up needing a girls' alliance. To get a guy out, and particularly one of the new Manono tribe members, at least the girls are the majority and it leaves my old Salani tribe in the majority and it gives me two really great options moving forward," Kim explained.

"I was like, 'Jeeze you guys. Are you guys kidding me? You're going to let this guy go? I mean, he feeds us. He provides for us. Why? Why now?'" Troyzan questioned.

Troyzan then told Jonas his name was being thrown around, and Jonas worried he was out of the loop and going home. Jonas didn't understand why his name was being mentioned because he said it made no logical sense to vote him out considering he was the "least-threatening guy" in the game.

"There's Mike, who's the most dominant person as far as Immunity Challenges, so they want to keep him around over me. And so, immediately I go into 'survival mode,'" Jonas said.


Jonas, in an obvious desperate situation, then apologized to Tarzan. Tarzan was very pleased and began to cry. He appreciated it a lot and regained his respect for Jonas, assuming their alliance was back together again. Afterwards, Tarzan, Jonas, Leif, and Troyzan came to the conclusion they were going to vote for Kat because she didn't do much around camp or in challenges.

"We're voting for Kat as a last-minute scramble. I'd rather vote Mike out instead, but we figured Kat doesn't pull her weight a whole lot, she kind of annoys a lot of people. So, that's my only hope at this point -- is I'm voting Kat," Jonas said.

Chelsea wanted to get rid of Tarzan because she believed he wasn't a fun person to be around. She said she was all about who deserved to be there and who brought everyone up when everyone was down. Chelsea said Jonas "worked his ass off" and wanted to spare him a couple more days over Tarzan.

Chelsea tried to convince Jay, Kim and Kat to vote off Tarzan first and keep Jonas around longer, because he was ultimately feeding everyone and was a pleasure to be around. However, Jay said once a plan was in motion, they shouldn't stray from it because "all hell could break loose" and then it could come back to "bite them in the butt."

That night, Survivor: One World's Tikiano tribe members arrived for their first Tribal Council altogether as a merged tribe, the seventh session of the season overall.

Sabrina said things got chaotic after the merge, and then Jonas said people were calling him a threat because he was a provider. He then brought up the idea of removing a physical threat instead, because those people could win most of the vital Individual Immunity Challenges. Jonas then said aloud that he was going to vote off Mike in the hopes people would join him.


Tarzan disrespected what Jonas did for throwing Mike under the bus. He thought Jonas didn't have to fight for his life and shouldn't have done that.

Jonas then said his alliance didn't have the votes to get rid of Kat despite Tarzan's "brilliant plan." Tarzan -- who was shocked he revealed their plan to vote off Kat -- said he was sick of the confusion and might as well vote Jonas out since he was worried about getting eliminated. Tarzan said Jonas was always undermining him, and he was sick of fighting. As a result, Tarzan verified the fact he was going to write Jonas' name down.

Chelsea then came to Jonas' defense, along with Sabrina, and they both said no one had issues with Jonas but many people had run into altercations with Tarzan. Tarzan admitted he was awkward in the social game, and then Kim noted that "the beauty of the merge" was the fact people like Jonas could become a threat and people like Tarzan an asset.

Chelsea then said the better move would be to keep the provider and get rid of the dead weight. Tarzan said if the castaways wanted to vote him off, that was fine. But he still planned to vote for Jonas.

Jeff then revealed the votes. Seven people voted to oust Jonas from Survivor: One World, while two people voted for Mike. After showing the votes, Jeff extinguished Jonas' torch and he wished no hard feelings towards Tarzan. Tarzan, however, said "hard feelings to you." Jonas then walked off and cracked a joke about Tarzan's dirty laundry.

"Well, you just voted out somebody who almost everybody agrees was likeable, was a provider, and was loyal. And that means nobody is safe," Jeff announced before he sent all the castaways back to camp.


The episode's closing credits later showed that everyone voted for Jonas except for Jonas and Leif -- who had voted for Mike.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski