Keys to Survivor San Juan del Sur Episode 3

Recharged and ready to blog:
To lead out my post this week I'm giving a huge thank you to the RPI Office of Alumni relations for an awesome Reunion and Homecoming weekend #RPIRHC.  I thoroughly enjoyed the live astronaut Q&A via the ISS on Friday afternoon.  Fan fest was lots of fun with fantastic weather.  An evening of A Cappella with all 4 of RPI's vocal-only groups in addition to Voice Play made for a great ending.  It made me late in posting my thoughts on last week's episode of Survivor, but it was well worth it to me.  My (currently) few blog followers probably don't mind either.

Previous Vote Logistics:
Josh reveals he switched his vote at tribal council. It was going to be 3-3, but he realized Val/Jaclyn were going to vote for Baylor.  So he swapped his vote to make it 4-2 so that once the other 2 girls voted it would be 4-4 and he could guarantee to force the idol out.
How is it that Josh was the only person wise enough to see where that vote was going and act decisively to maintain control?  Don't these people watch countless (ok, so you could count them) seasons of Survivor before walking out on the beach?  Anyway, my respect for Josh goes way up with that knowledge.

Reward Tactics:
The reward challenge is done on an unstable bridge.  Transport plates from 1 side to other and get a stack of 6.  Coyopa wins rock/paper/scissors and chooses Wes as he thinks he can beat his dad, Keith.  He does, with a come from behind victory.  Finally their losing streak ends.
Keith goes to Exile Island.  Wes sends Josh because they get along so he hopes his dad will get along with him too.  Coyopa chooses the abandoned fishing gear from last week instead of blankets.

Exile Strategy:
Keith gets Josh to agree to share the clue either way.  Keith gets it.  They share info.  Keith thinks Jeremy may have it.  Josh thinks John may have it.  New clue adds 3 more symbols: Steps, 1 that I can't remember, and 1 that we couldn't really see.  They didn't focus on it because one was already found and the other didn't get any air time on this episode.

Drama:
Jeremy was upset that Val was voted out.  John says he tried to save her, but couldn't make it happen.  His tribe was caught off guard by that, and Jeremy doesn't buy it anyway.  Probably not a great move to mention that out loud.

Immunity Challenge:
For immunity, each team makes pairs which are tied together to race through a tangle of bamboo poles to retrieve a ball, then move to the center to shoot the ball into a vertical shaft before the other team. First team to some arbitrary number of points wins.  As usual for immunity challenges, Hunahpu wins.  Jeremy tells everyone about John's past comments (years ago) that were racial and homophobic.  Natalie really yells at him for that and for being a poor sport.  John offers to fight her after she said she would fight him.  Hunahpu all tell Coyopa to get rid of him since he's a jerk and he's running the game (even though he really, really isn't - he's just starring in it right now).

New Voting Logistics and Hat Tipping:
The plan is to vote out Baylor and stay strong with the guys alliance.  But Coyopa's insistence on voting out John gets them to start thinking about alternative options.  Wes/Josh/Jaclyn/Baylor decide they could take John out now.  Alec is on board too.  Now they would just need to make it happen.
Key points at tribal council are shown.  Jaclyn pretty much lets the cat out of the bag that something is awry.  Why should she sound so confident unless people have a) been talking to her, and b) giving her hope by saying someone otherwise unexpected is being voted out.

Editing and Aftermath:
Editing makes many moments more clear.  Editing makes it seem obvious that John could be in trouble.  Jaclyn sounds confident.  John hasn't heard anything before now to make him suspect anything, but hearing something now should be a huge red flag - unless she's bluffing.  Jaclyn's an idiot - at least with this edit.  Don't give away that there is a plan.  Say you hope there is, but that you're not sure if things could go your way.  Prove to me that you watch this show and you didn't just respond to a casting call for a beauty queen!
So John hears all this, and even reacts to it to indicate this is troubling to him.  The last thing he wants is to be voted out with an idol in his pocket.  He's already a step ahead of poor Garrett from last season who left his idol at camp and couldn't use it to save himself.  This season's chiseled physique of a man surely will redeem all chiseled men.
NOPE!
Again, editing may play strongly into this, but John doesn't play his idol.  He's voted out 5-2, leaving just Dale in the dark.  The first true blindside this season, despite what they put on the screen in past episodes with a hashtag next to it, hoping we excitedly tweet about it.
I fully believe that if John sincerely meant that the last thing he wanted was to be voted out with an idol in his pocket, he had one way of ensuring that - playing his idol.  I guess the last thing he wanted was to play an idol unnecessarily and look like a fool.  Sadly, he gets to look like a fool AND be removed from the game.

Editor's Note:
Maybe it's time to cast me on a season instead of a dumb jock who will get kicked out early and disappoint.

Preview:
Looks like Drew thinks he's a god.  Looks like Jeremy thinks Drew is a moron.  Looks like Drew decides to tell Jeff something on behalf of his entire tribe that they supposedly wouldn't ask.  We can only guess what that's all about, but it sure sounds like a bad idea which will cause wonderful new drama to spice up episode 4, coming up in less than a day.