THE NEWLY MERGED TRIBE BEGINS TO SCHEME IMMEDIATELY AS OLD ALLIANCES CRUMBLE AND NEW ONES BEGIN TO FORM, ON “SURVIVOR: TOCANTINS — THE BRAZILIAN HIGHLANDS,” THURSDAY, APRIL 9

“The Dragon Slayer” – A power player decides to come into the merge fighting, but his plan may be thwarted before it can be carried out. Meanwhile, an exiled pair makes a shocking discovery, on SURVIVOR: TOCANTINS – THE BRAZILIAN HIGHLANDS, Thursday, April 9 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

The day after Tribal Council, Sydney was worried that if Jalapao were to lose the next Immunity Challenge that either her or Taj would be voted off as the men would stick together. Joe tried to assure her that she would make it to the merger as she was trustworthy and the men would vote off Taj first. Taj and Stephen discussed telling J.T. about the Hidden Immunity Idol, but not the secret four-way Exile Island alliance in order to secure his vote at the next Tribal Council. Over at Timbira, Coach clashed with his tribe over him burning a pot of beans.

The reward challenge was where tribes would have five minutes to build a barricade of poles tied together with ropes inside two frames of the opposing tribe. The tribes would then have to toss small ceramic pigs from tribemate to tribemate through the two frames, avoiding breaking them against the barricade or dropping them. The tribe which tosses the most number of intact pigs through the frames after ten minutes would win. A trip to a waterfall and a barbecue with hamburgers.

At the Reward Challenge, Timbira won the closely fought challenge 14-13. Timbira decided to send Joe to Exile Island and he chose Erinn to join him, thinking that she would be a good candidate to flip her tribal loyalties once the merger occurred. On Exile Island, Erinn select the urn with the clue to the Hidden Immunity Idol and shared the clue with Joe. Joe and Erinn thought that if they could find the two Hidden Immunity Idols, they could have a strong alliance together. To counter Joe figuring out Jalapao’s Hidden Immunity Idol had already been found, Taj and Stephen crafted a fake idol and placed it in the statue at tree mail. After using the real idol as a model for the fake one she made, Taj tried to hide it her bag, but J.T. stumbled upon the idol after she walked off. Stephen tried cover for Taj by telling J.T. that Taj had just discovered the idol moments earlier and had shown it to him. A bit later, Taj showed the idol to J.T. and told him that he could have it anytime he needed it. J.T. believed Taj and Stephen to be honest in their story and that he now had a strong alliance with them.

The Immunity Challenge was each tribe would use a slingshot to shoot out a tile in three towers full of sand. After a tile is broken, the sand would be released from the tower which would cause a bag of puzzle pieces to be released and the tile at the next tower to be uncovered. The same tribe member could do all of the shooting with the slingshot or different shooters may be substituted. Once all three bags of puzzle pieces were collected, two tribe members would have to assemble the puzzle to win the challenge.

At the Immunity Challange, Tyson gave his tribe a large lead by winning the slingshot shoot out over J.T. Brendan and Erinn finished off the puzzle to give Timbira their third Immunity Challenge win in a row. After the challenge, Joe told his tribemates that Erinn kept the clue to the Hidden Immunity Idol to herself. Using an excuse that he wanted some water, he went to find the idol, not knowing that what he found was a fake. Joe told the tribe to vote out Taj. Stephen and J.T. tried to convince Joe to vote out Sydney, but were unable to convince him to change his vote. Stephen and J.T. thought about the possibility of blindsiding Taj at Tribal Council since Stephen had the Hidden Immunity Idol. However, the two kept to their alliance with Taj and Sydney was voted out 3-2.

Voted out: CAROLINA EASTWOOD (1st Voted Out), CANDACE SMITH (2nd Voted Out), JERRY SIMS (3rd Voted Out), SANDY BURGIN (4th Voted Out), SPENCER DUHM (5th Voted Out),

Remaining:

JALAPAO TRIBE: JOE DOWDLE, STEPHEN FISHBACH, TAJ JOHNSON-GEORGE, JAMES “JT” THOMAS JR., SYDNEY WHEELER

TIMBIRA TRIBE

TYSON APOSTOL, DEBRA “Debbie” BEEBE, ERINN LOBDELL, SIERRA REED, BRENDAN SYNNOTT, BENJAMIN “Coach” WADE

SURVIVOR: TOCANTINS – THE BRAZILIAN HIGHLANDS is hosted by Emmy Award-winning host Jeff Probst and produced by SEG, Inc. Mark Burnett is executive producer and David Burris and Leisa Francis are co-executive producers.

Source: CBS Press Release