OK, so it's not going to be a complete rout for the Kota tribe after all. Which is the way I like it: a season of Survivor with predictable early eliminations is one that will have trouble gaining momentum. But the tribes now seem much more evenly matched after Fang won both reward and immunity challenges this week, and both Fang and Kota have clear fault lines already that will add tension to all subsequent defeats. Plus, an all-time Survivor first was achieved this week, thanks to a goofy-sounding pinup model.

The most valuable player for Fang was Crystal, who barely made it up the hill during the season's opening challenge and certainly looked nothing like the Olympic athlete she is. But this week, she was instrumental in Fang's reward challenge win that boosted their flagging morale. The challenge, a variation on one we've seen before, called for two members of one tribe to pry someone from the other tribe off a pole and drag them across a line: first team to cross the line twice would win. With the score tied 1-1, Fang swapped out GC, who had appeared less than dedicated in his first time out, with Crystal, who had helped score Fang's first point. The result was that Fang's coed team of Crystal and Matty were able to drag Ace across the line before Bob and Marcus could do the same to Dan.

Fang decided to send the tiny model/actress Sugar to Exile following the reward win. Typically on Survivor, it's been the more athletic players who have been exiled, under the assumption that they will be weakened and demoralized for future challenges. However, that's also meant that the stronger players have been the ones finding individual immunity idols, giving them even more power. We can assume Fang sent Sugar for another reason: that she was believed too blonde to figure out the clues to the Idol's location and too frail to really even search.

But Sugar ended up surprising us all, brushing off a fire ant attack, quickly finding the "sandy crater" that so confused Dan last week, and then knocking out the subsequent clues and finding the individual immunity idol. Sugar is the first woman who has ever gotten the individual Idol at this early stage, putting her in the novel (for Survivor) position of having hidden strength while being perceived to be weak (no one other than her bestest buddy Ace knowing or even suspecting that she might have found the idol).

Ace reacted to the Kota reward challenge loss by both telling the others it was no big deal while simultaneously pinning blame on the other person who had been dragged across the line, little Paloma, who he suggested quit on the team. It seemed an unfair charge; she was simply manhandled by Crystal and Randy, much heftier players. The bigger issue is that Ace perceived Paloma and her best friend Kelly as unwilling to accept his tacit leadership around camp, not too surprising considering the full-of-himself vibes (complete with odd and possibly contrived accent) that Ace emits.

Kota then lost the immunity challenge, which required the players to slide into the lake and retrieve tiles that were keys to solving a complicated puzzle. Tribe brainiacs Bob (Kota) and Ken (Fang) struggled with the puzzle, both coming up with wrong answers before Ken finally hit on the solution.

Shaken a bit by two straight defeats, it was a fairly easy decision for Kota to get rid of the player seen as their physically weakest: Paloma. The "onion alliance" of Marcus, Charlie, Corinne, and Jacquie that we saw formed last week seemed to prefer targeting Ace, but likely decided that going along with the Paloma boot made more sense for now, as it might keep their alliance hidden a bit longer. Ace said that he wants to get rid of Kelly next, but doesn't seem to appreciate that doing this would leave he and Sugar alone against a solid alliance.

We didn't see as much of life at Fang this week considering that they won, but the growing dislike between Randy and GC is something to keep an eye on, especially given that GC has now been seen to be taking rests in the middle of challenges in two straight weeks. There's something essentially dysfunctional about a tribe where someone as antisocial as Randy is serving as the voice of reason, telling people it might not be a good idea to be eating three meals a day considering that there's no guarantee of being resupplied with food. "I really shouldn't blame them for being complete idiots, but they are," said Randy.

So no happy-go-lucky supertribes this time out: just some pissy and paranoid Americans stuck in Gabon. That's entertainment.

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