When we last left Survivor: Micronesia, the Malakal tribe was having a hard time winning any of the Immunity Challenges, camp life at Airai was horrible, the Fans were getting picked off one-by-one and Ami kept confusing her fellow tribe mates (and the audience) with her constant waffling.  Let me assure you, not much changed this week.

After knocking off Tracy at the last Tribal Council, Erik – and surprisingly, Ozzy – were both feeling a bit unsettled.  Since he was the only Fan remaining at Malakal, the ice cream man figured he had a very short shelf life in the competition.  Meanwhile, Ozzy was feeling incredibly frustrated by the recent turn of events.  Since Tracy nastily called him the ‘leader’ of their group (a title he refused to accept), he knew that he might now have a large target on his back.

The next day, Ozzy confided to Ami about feeling vulnerable in the game.  He wasn’t the leader – he was just a guy who had a lot of good opinions and know-how!  Although the nanny did her best to make the photographer feel better, she may have actually tried too hard.  She said she would never vote against him, but Ozzy felt that she was almost too adamant.

Over at Airai, James and Parvati were thinking about the eventual merge.  If the two didn’t work on recruiting some people from their current team, Ami and Eliza might steal them later.  So Parvati made a move and addressed Natalie on her own.  If she and Alexis would agree to help Parvati and James get to the next phase, the three girls could later work with Amanda to get rid of the stronger men in the game.  (The personal trainer said she would go along with the plan.)

Later, both tribes received a special message in their tree mail.  Each team would have to pre-pick someone from the opposing side to send to Exile Island.  That person would not only sit out the next Immunity Challenge, they would also be immune from a Tribal Council happening that same night.  (Since someone was just sent home, the groups were not expecting to be eliminating anyone again so soon.)

When they arrived at their next Challenge, Jeff Probst immediately asked for the chosen names.  Believing the event involved some balancing, Malakal decided to exile someone they thought would be a good balancer:  Alexis.  (I’m not entirely sure what they based that judgment on.)  Meanwhile, Airiai opted to take away Malakal’s strongest player:  Ozzy.

For the Immunity Idol, the parties participated in an American Gladiators-esque event.  Two players from each side had to maneuver an obstacle course while their opponents attempted to knock them down with sandbags.  The goal was to retrieve a flag on the other side of the course and bring it back.  If at any time a racer fell, that person would have to return to the start and their partner would have to take over. The first team to bring back five flags would win.

Erik decided to use a bold move to kick things off for Malakal.  Instead of navigating a wobbly bridge, the Ozzy-wannabe decided to forego all that and simply jumped over to the next platform.  It was a very sexy timesaver, but it really didn’t give his team a huge lead; Airai did a good job keeping things close.  Eventually, the race really came down to just Jason vs. Erik.  Even though Eliza and Amanda were there to help, the two girls kept falling off.

When things were tied four-to-four, Amanda prompted Erik to take her turn; she believed his leaping skills might give them the extra advantage they needed.  Unfortunately, the scooper failed to make the second platform and ended up slamming his body instead.  This accident gave Airai just enough room to comfortably take their fourth immunity win a row.  For their reward, the tribe members would get a pizza and beer feast.

While her fellow campers were gorging on cheesy goodness, Alexis was doing her best to find the hidden Immunity Idol.  Meanwhile, Ozzy was doing his best to pretend that he hadn’t found it yet.  When they finally reached the spot where the idol should have been, Ozzy realized that someone actually fell for his lame trick.  The fake bait he left behind was now gone.

Back at camp, Ami was really feeling sorry for Erik.  After seeing how hard he had worked at the challenge, she really hated to think of sending him home.  She thought he was a good, genuine person.  Erik, though, was determined to do anything he could to save himself – even if that meant exposing the team’s biggest liar.  While Ozzy was still away, ice cream boy made a bold move and exposed Amanda’s double-crossing ways to Amanda and Cirie.  He told them the nanny had been making mini-alliances behind their backs for quite some time.

Realizing what Erik had just done, Ami ‘fessed up to the two ladies.  Yes – she did have conversations with people from the Fans group.  But it was really important for them to realize that she never did once vote against them.  She only led the other people to believe she would.  Although Amanda and Cirie knew that neither of them could be trusted at this point, the gals were leaning toward keeping Ami around.  They felt it was better to keep the devil they knew rather than work with the devil that they didn’t know at all.

Unsure if he had managed to secure his position in the game, Erik made a point of hounding Ozzy the minute he returned to camp.  He quickly recapped all of Ami’s backstabbing details – including the time she came close to voting for Ozzy.  Angered by the reveal, Ozzy later talked to Amanda about getting rid of the nanny.  Although Amanda still believed that it was better to keep someone they knew around, Malakal’s team leader strongly felt that Erik would be the more loyal subject in the end.

Later that night, Ami became quite emotional at Tribal Council.  After Ozzy made it quite clear how betrayed he felt, she basically begged (through tears) for her former teammates to believe her.  Not only did she never actually do anything betray them, she swore to them she’d give everything she had from that point forward.

In the end, it turned out a wronged-Ozzy is not a forgiving one.  LOSER:  Ami.

(You can review last week’s episode here.)
(You can read next week’s episode here.)