This episode starts out at Fei Long with Jean-Robert bugging everyone with his “snuggling” and snoring. The ladies are all creeped out, though there is little they can do since the place where they sleep barely holds everyone as it is. The ladies threaten that the first time they get to tribal council, he is a goner (which most assuredly means he won’t be going home this episode). It isn’t to the point where they are threatening to throw a competition to get rid of him, but I suppose it might come to that in a few episodes if the tribe keeps up its winning ways.

After the commercial, back again to Fei Long. The guys are fighting over a crab they accidentally caught. Some of them don’t want to share. Why a contestant would broadcast a sense of entitlement to food over other contestants is beyond me. Interestingly, the gravedigger notes he was the ONLY contestant to actually research survival techniques prior to going out to China. Hyperbole, or are these people really as dumb as they come off?

Back at Zhan Hu, the tribemates complain that Dave doesn’t rest, and that is bad because he won’t have energy for competitions. Dave argues that you can’t rest fully if you don’t work–it’s a balance–which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. He’s still talking about that stupid bbq and is acting like the dictator of the camp. Bossing people around and implying everyone else is lazier than you is NOT a recipe for success.

The reward challenge involves more physical contact. The object is to throw rival tribe members off a sampan. They are playing for blankets, pillows and a tarp. I expect that this going to get really ugly. The Zhan Hu gals win the first round. Next up, the guys. Speaking of ugly, headcase Dave strips down to his birthday suit–everyone is grossed out. The much larger Fei Long guys dominate and win the second round. The Zhan Hu women win again. The men are up, and Dave is again naked. He idiotically takes on the huge gravedigger and doesn’t last long. The women are the tie breaker and Zhan Hu wins something for once. Of course, if the guys were the tie-breaker, there would have been no question who would win. In the course of the competition there were a number of wardrobe malfunctions–not counting Dave’s self-selected streaking. They really, really, really need to give these people some clothes. Enough of the blurring already.

Zhan Hu kidnaps Leslie, the Christian radio host, who fits in much better with Zhan Hu than her own tribe. Leslie gets diarrhea of the mouth, and is happy to dish the dirt about her tribemates.

Back at Fei Long, the gravedigger suggests that Leslie is a hypocrite, and that people who pray the most do so because they sin the most. The gravedigger and Jean-Robert are slamming their tribemates and setting the order to throw people out, all the while several tribemates (Todd and Courtney) are nearby listening in. Jean-Robert (the “cuddler”) more or less asserts he is sleeping next to women to get his rocks off, and boasts that the only thing better than a million dollars, is “some @$$, and a million dollars.”

Meanwhile, Leslie gives Jaime the clue to the hidden immunity idol (recall that last week Jaime gave it to her).

Once the groups get together to compete for immunity, Leslie stupidly states what a good time she had at Zhan Hu and volunteers that they talked a lot. I’m not sure how that will play. The challenge involves cutting bamboo with a sword to get to a rope that they cut to get puzzle pieces, and then do a Chinese puzzle with the pieces. I’m getting the impression that the Chinese are puzzle freaks–at least that is how they are portrayed. Fei Long was forced to choose Courtney for this task because she sat out the last one. A fatal mistake as it turns out. Courtney appears exhausted out of the gate and can barely swing the blade (she weighs all of 80 lbs). Zhan Hu has all four bundles before Courtney has finished cutting. I have never seen one person single-handedly lose a challenge as bad as Courtney is doing. The producers try to make it interesting by doing this lame freeze-frame of the Zhan Hu contestants at the moment of their final swing. Fei Long starts to catch up once the other contestants get a chance to cut. Meanwhile Zhan Hu is taking forever to put their puzzle together (or so it is edited), so Fei Long has made some progress catching up. Of course, it is no where near as close as the editors make out. Zhan Hu wins immunity!

Courtney looks despondent, as she should since she totally blew it. She complains back at camp that she “hurt herself”–trying to salvage her position with the sympathy card. Luckily for Courtney, Leslie idiotically shares with the group that she gave information away about her tribemates. They begin to wonder if she would be loyal if she makes it to merge. Todd lobbies to keep Courtney, and allay fear that the loss of Jean-Robert would hurt their chance at challenges. Todd wants the big guys out, because he knows he can’t compete against them in individual challenges. The rational choice is to get rid of weakling Courtney, or suspect Leslie, but we shall see if reason rules the day.

At tribal council, Jean-Robert complains that even though they have 3 of the strongest guys, they have 2 of the weakest women–Leslie and Courtney. Leslie paradoxically argues for herself by asserting that the other tribe has a much better attitude and atmosphere than Zhan Hu. If people were suspicious of her before, that statement could not have helped her cause. The voting shows that Leslie is out. Not much of a surprise. Her heart wasn’t in it, and she never would have gotten to the end anyway. She seems relieved to go in her post-eviction soliloquy.

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