The Tables Have Turned

The Tables Have Turned is the third episode of .
==Story==
===Night 9===
The Mana tribe arrives back at camp, having just voted out Caleb Reynolds unanimously at the last Tribal Council. Sierra Dawn Thomas comforts Tai Trang, thanking him for going along with the decision to take out a person who was very close to him. Tai in turn thanks his tribemates for trusting him and letting him in on the plan, as he says he did what was best for his own game.
===Day 10===
The next morning, Hali Ford talks with Debbie Wanner. Debbie thanks her for going along with them and tells her that she is glad that Hali is still in the game. Hali tells Debbie that if they lose another challenge, they should get rid of Tai because he is shifty.
Debbie continues to agree with Hali, saying that she knows that Tai is a threat to both of their games and that he should go home. However, she mostly does this in order to keep Hali on her side.
Later Debbie, Sierra, and Brad Culpepper talk about keeping the original Nuku tribe strong, and all three of them agree that it has to be Hali that goes if Mana loses another Immunity Challenge.
The Reward Challenge requires two members representing each tribe. One member must balance a ball on a post of increasing length, while the other would have to knock wooden sticks off of tables using sandbags. The first tribe to win would get a series of sweets, including cookies and coffee, while the second place tribe would get a thermos of iced coffee. Tai from Mana, J.T. Thomas from Nuku, and Ozzy Lusth from Tavua do the pole section, while Brad from Mana, Malcolm Freberg from Nuku, and Troyzan Robertson from Tavua throw the sandbags.
In the challenge, Tai quickly falls behind as J.T. and Ozzy are able to gain the early lead for their respective tribes. At the sandbag portion, Troyzan quickly enters with the lead, but is then overtaken by Malcolm. Malcolm is able to knock down the posts the fastest and wins reward for Nuku. While Troyzan has only two posts left, Tai manages to complete the balance portion and hands the challenge off to Brad. Brad quickly manages to catch up and pass Troyzan, winning reward for Mana in a come-from-behind victory.
At Tavua camp, the tribe is bummed that they lost the Reward Challenge. Troyzan feels particularly bad that he completely blew the challenge for his tribe.
Ozzy heads out and catches some fish for his tribe, using it as an opportunity to relax and get away from the game. Ozzy brings back a large fish and his tribe admires it. Andrea Boehlke is surprised to see the large stingray that Ozzy has just caught.
Back at Nuku, the tribe thanks Malcolm for their victory and enjoy the coffee that they have just won. Sandra Diaz-Twine is very excited to be with her new, winning tribe as opposed to the old Mana.
J.T. and Malcolm head off and J.T. pitches to Malcolm that Sandra is running the show and should be taken out. Malcolm agrees, noting how strong of a player Sandra is and the damage she can do to both of them if she sticks around.
J.T. and Malcolm solidify a bond and agree to tell each other if their names are brought up.
===Day 11===
At the Immunity Challenge, host Jeff Probst reveals that two tribes will be going to Tribal Council that night. The challenge requires that one caller send their blindfolded teammates out to water towers to collect a bag of balls. Once they get all three bags, they would come back and have three members each complete a table maze.
Mana's caller is Brad, Nuku's is Jeff Varner, and Tavua's is Cirie Fields. Jeff and Cirie both lead their tribes to an early lead over Mana, who struggle both in hearing Brad and following his instructions correctly. Nuku is able to complete the blindfolded section first, and J.T. is the first person on the table maze.
Tavua finishes the blindfolded section second, sending Ozzy to do the table maze, while Mana eventually catches up and sends Sierra to do the table maze. J.T. gets the first ball, handing the maze off to Michaela, while Sierra messes up the puzzle and hands it off to Hali. Ozzy then lands Tavua's first ball and hands it off to Sarah. Michaela and Hali both mess up, handing off to Malcolm and Brad respectively. Malcolm lands Nuku's second ball, being the first tribe to do so, and Sarah manages to land hers not too far behind. The challenge comes down to Jeff for Nuku and Andrea for Tavua, both inches away from completing their maze. Jeff is about to complete the challenge when he misses the final hole, dropping the ball, allowing Andrea to win the challenge for Tavua, and sending Mana and Nuku to Tribal Council.
After the challenge, Jeff reveals that not only will both tribes be going to Tribal Council, but they will both be going to one Joint Tribal Council and will vote someone out together. Everyone is shocked by this new information.
At Nuku camp, J.T. is excited to have a 6-5 majority over the Mana tribe. Everyone on the tribe is a bit shocked to have this twist, but they decide that they need to work together as a tribe to ensure that someone on Mana goes home.
The tribe discusses how Mana will try to get J.T. to vote with them, worrying his tribunates about their ability to have the numbers at this upcoming strange vote. Sandra is nervous about J.T. being on their side.
Sandra pitches to the tribe that they should vote out Sierra because she is Mana's strongest female. Some people agree, but J.T. says that he would rather get rid of Tai for being sneaky and because he does not think that he has or would play a Hidden Immunity Idol. In the end, it seems to be Sandra rooting for Sierra to go, while J.T. roots for Tai to go.
Malcolm asks J.T. who he thinks Brad would target, and J.T. tells him that Brad would target Sandra. As a result, both J.T. and Malcolm feel safe about Tribal Council even if an idol gets played.
At Mana, Debbie pitches getting rid of Sandra because of her strong ability as a player. Despite this, the tribe is nervous about their position being down 6-5 and having Hali, who is outside of the majority in their tribe already.
Brad asks Hali if they are together as a group. However, Hali is still torn about being together on Mana or having an opportunity to try to improve her position by flipping to her closer allies on Nuku.
Mana also discusses getting rid of Malcolm, leaving their discussion between voting out a strong strategic threat in Sandra or a strong physical threat in Malcolm. In the end, they know that J.T. will be the swing vote between the tribes if everyone stays strong as they are expecting.
Knowing the severity of the situation, Tai begins frantically searching for an idol. He looks inside of logs, under trees, and eventually finds a clue to an idol nestled in a tree.
Tai's clue tells him to line himself up between the flag and several trees, where the idol is hidden where they all intersect. After some digging, Tai finds the idol.
At camp, everyone discusses being scared. Tai decides to reveal to his tribe that he has the idol. Tai says that he is willing to play it if they find out that either Brad, Debbie, Sierra, or himself are going home.
At Tribal Council, the discussion originally begins with any members flipping from their original tribe, centering around J.T. being the swing vote. Sandra confidently defends Nuku's togetherness and J.T. tells Nuku that he would not want to put himself at risk by flipping tribes. The talk of idols does come up, and everyone on the tribe is worried about someone from Nuku pulling out an idol. Hali is also pinpointed as a swing vote, knowing that she is on the outside of Mana. As the tribes begin to fight over their minority members, Hali and Malcolm, pandemonium begins to break out, during which Sandra realizes that Hali is trying to tell the tribe that Hali wants to get rid of Brad, while neither side decides to switch their votes from what they came into Tribal Council wanting to do.
Suddenly, J.T. stands up from his seat, and walks over to Brad to inform him that they are voting for Sierra. Hali suddenly stands up as well to tell Sandra that she wants to get rid of Brad. The tribes then form groups, standing in circles discussing that Hali wants to get rid of Brad, while J.T. has already informed Mana that Nuku is voting for Sierra. After a long-standing discussion, everyone sits back down, content with their original plans. Jeff decides to finally say that it is time to vote. However, Hali says that she is not ready to vote. Everyone tells her they can vote, to which Hali says that 'they may regret it.' As she is voting, Sandra reassures Michaela that nobody has the idol, and that their plan is still solid.
Before the votes are read, Tai stands up to play his idol, using the information that he got from J.T. to play it for Sierra. J.T. successfully ruins Nuku's plan, with their six votes for Sierra all being negated by Tai's idol. However, J.T. is shocked when his plan backfires and Malcolm is idoled out in a 5-0 vote.
As they leave Tribal Council, Michaela tells Jeff that she thinks J.T. set them up, and that he thwarted their plans.
==Challenges==
<tabber>
Reward=
Challenge: Ram-Ball OnTwo castaways per tribe will compete in this challenge. The first must race to balance a ball on the top of a pole while maneuvering through a series of obstacles. Along the way, they would add another section of the pole, making it harder to balance the ball as they make their way through the course. After they got past the balance beam, they would have to untie knots to get to a table, where they would place the ball on it to retrieve a key. The second castaway will unlock a chest of sandbags and shoot the sandbags at a series of bamboo targets. The first two pairs of castaways to finish win reward for their tribes.Reward: Coffee, iced tea, and chocolate cookies (first place); Thermos of iced coffee (second place).Winners (in order of finish): and 
|-|
Immunity=
Challenge: Ow-PairsEach tribe will choose one person to be their caller. The rest of the tribe will be blindfolded. Using only verbal commands, the caller will instruct two pairs of blindfolded tribe members to collect three bags containing one ball each. Once they have all three bags, they will take off the blindfolds and, one at a time, work to put the three balls in the center of a table maze. Once a tribe member succeeded to put one ball at the center of the maze, they could not help their tribemates anymore for the remaining balls. The first tribe to finish wins immunity.Additional Stipulation: The two tribes who will lose this challenge will both be sent to a Joint Tribal Council, where the two tribes will together vote one castaway out.Winner: 
</tabber>
==Tribal Council==
colspan="2" 	
VotedAgainst	Voter
 	
 	
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===Voting Confessionals===
Brad's and Jeff's votes were not shown during their confessionals.
===Final Words===
===Still in the Running===
									
									
==Trivia==
===Other===
* This is the first episode in which two tribes attended a Joint Tribal Council with the tribes convening to vote out only one contestant from either tribe.
* This is the first time where the Blind Leading the Blind challenge was used in an all-returnees season without being combined with the Cube Crisis puzzle.
* This is the first time since where only one tribe is eligible to win a challenge during the three-tribe phase.
===Episode Title===
* The title was said by Hali Ford, referring to how she went from being the person going to be voted out to a potential swing vote.
==References==
Category:Survivor (U.S.)
Category:Episodes
Category:Survivor (U.S.) Episodes
Category:Survivor: Game Changers
Category:Game Changers Episodes