"The Tides Are Turning"

The tribe received a special Tree Mail, which accompanied a full-length mirror and pictures of themselves taken just before the game started. Everyone took time to gawk at themselves in the mirror. Actually, the men took the time and the women couldn't even get to the mirror! Later Ted and Brian had a discussion about their "alliance", leaving Ted skeptical about Brian's loyalty. On the way to the final Reward Challenge, the tribe is almost run over by Jeff Probst driving a Chevy Trailblazer. He picks up the tribe and they ride together the rest of the way to the challenge site. They are playing for the Trailblazer (this year's SUV of choice), as well as a full Thai dinner, a shower, and massage. The challenge was to retrieve a series of placards with English letters on them (mixed in with Thai letters), and then come up with a two word answer from the letters that spell "an activity". An odd thing happened at the beginning of the challenge - all of the tribe members were standing on a small platform. The first letter was underneath the platform. Jeff told them that they were standing on the first of eight letters. When the challenge starts, everyone starts running to the next station. No one checks underneath their little platform to get their first letter. Jeff has to run after them yelling "You're standing on the first one! Guys!" You're standing on the first one!" Eventually everyone hears Jeff and goes back to the start and the rest of the collection goes normally. Brian figured it out first, but misspelled the clue. He said the clue out loud - "Road Trip" - giving Ted the correct answer. Ted rearranged his tiles correctly (Brian had flipped the "o" and "a" in "Road"), and Ted won the challenge. Because of being saved in a prior Immunity Challenge, Ted chose Helen to join him on the reward. Ted got to drive the two of them in the Trailblazer to the reward site, where there was a feast setup. Neither Helen nor Ted drink, and there were about a half dozen bottles of wine. They decided "what the hell" and started drinking while enjoying their meal. Well, needless to say, Ted got drunk. He was slurring his words, had that "droopy-eye" look, and was just getting loud and obnoxious - hard to enjoy a soothing massage when a big black man is yelling out loud in the shower and yelling in ecstasy when getting his massage. The next day, Ted and Helen go back to camp - with the rest of the unopened wine and food stuffed into their canteens. There were some private discussions on who to vote out. The Immunity Challenge was to build pieces of a 10-step staircase. First one to the top is the winner. Brian wins immunity again. At Tribal Council, Ted Rogers, the 37-year-old software developer from Durham, North Carolina, was voted out of the Chuay Jai tribe 4-1. Next week: The Sole Survivor!