They Came at Us with Spears!

They Came at Us with Spears! is the season premiere of .
==Story==
===Day 1===
18 strangers arrive on a boat to the island nation of Vanuatu in the South Pacific to begin the 9th season of . The contestants notice the Vanuatu natives heading toward their big boat in kayaks and are excited to see Jeff Probst arrive from one of the kayaks. Jeff tells the contestants they will perform a traditional Vanuatu tribal ritual in order to stay on land, run by Chief Mormor, that he will merely observe to the side. He then has the castaways jump off the ship and onto canoes.
The castaways reach the shore and emerge from their canoes, where they are greeted by Vanuatu natives running toward them with spears. The natives then sing a tribal chant and immediately separate the men and the women to different sides, confusing the castaways. Chief Mormor starts welcoming the men, and gives them a kava to drink, which they spit out and do not enjoy at all.
Nightfall hits, and the Vanuatu natives continue dancing and chanting. Jeff then lets the castaways know that what is about to come is a part of their tradition. The natives bring in a live pig and slaughter it in front of all the castaways, much to their shock, except for Dolly Neely. The chief takes some pig's blood and puts it on the foreheads of the men as a sign of welcome.
The natives cheer as they finish the welcome, and Jeff steps up to tell them about the final element to the initiation, involving a spiritual stone. The chief is offering the men a chance to possess the stone, but they must climb a pole greased with pig fat in order to get the stone. The women would get it if the men do not succeed. The chief chooses a man to climb the pole and attempt to get the stone, and he chooses Brady Finta, who was hoping to not be chosen, much like the other men. The women were hoping Brady would fall so they could win the spiritual stone, but he ends up succeeding and wins it for the men.
Afterwards, Jeff announces it is officially time to begin Survivor: Vanuatu, and they will remain men vs. women, as the chief originally divided them. Chris Daugherty is on board with men vs. women, thinking he can manipulate men. Jeff hands the tribes their buffs and tells them their next task is to find their tribal beaches without a map or fire to guide them, and they will have a pot, machete, and map to water at each of their camps. he directs the men and women to their camps and wishes them good luck as he sends them on their ways.
On their way to camp, some of the women decide to stop on the way and rest and others wanted to keep going. Everyone tried encouraging each other to make a decision on what to do, but had trouble figuring out what to do. After some persuading, Scout Cloud Lee agreed to go with the girls.
Much like the women, Rory Freeman suggested they come up with a game plan to get to their camp, and the guys settled on continuing their walk to camp, which did not take them that long to find. Upon arriving at their new camp, the men celebrated after finding their way there. The women made it to their camp and celebrated as well.
===Day 2===
At Yasur, about half of the women work on building their shelter, while the others are hanging out in the ocean, chatting, and rubbing sand all over themselves. Scout calls them "bowheads" and Twila Tanner is working hard on the shelter, and Eliza feels that it makes those who took breaks look bad and seem like they are not making an effort to help.
At Lopevi, the men get ready to start a fire. John Palyok demonstrates a way to make fire in a bamboo stick, and thinks they can do it if the Aborigines can. As the guys continue to make fire, Chad Crittenden reveals his prosthetic leg to the tribe, much to everyone's surprise. He tells them he lost it due to a rare form of cancer called synovial sarcoma, and the men praise him for being there.
===Day 3===
After the tribes received Tree Mail, they met Jeff for their first Reward/Immunity Challenge.
When they got there, Jeff asked both tribes how they were doing, and they both said they needed to make fire.
Both tribes were dead even when they started in the mud pit, with John Kenney and Lisa Keiffer being the first ones through the mud pit. Lopevi gains a small lead on Yasur, as they have to pull Scout from the mud. Lopevi then gets to work on the table maze, with Yasur right behind them, but Lopevi manages to get their ball through the maze faster. As the men are trying to get across the balance beam, the women gets their ball through the maze and can move on. Lopevi maintains their lead, until Chris falls on the net, letting Scout catch up and give Yasur the lead. The women head to make fire as Chris attempts to cross the balance beam, and they are able to make fire quickly. The fire burns through the rope, and Twila runs with the torch to the finish line, giving Yasur the win, sending Lopevi to Tribal Council.
Back at camp, John P., Brady, John K., and Brook decide to vote for the weakest link, and that Chris is the weakest link. However, Lea Masters talks to Chris about voting off the young people. Chris suggests John P., but Lea says he is the only one trying to make fire and suggests they vote Brook for his cockiness.
Jeff welcomes them to their first Tribal Council, and asks everyone if they were thinking Chris was killing them after constantly failing to cross the balance beam, to which almost everyone agreed. Chris said he was not thinking he was gonna get voted out, because he does not categorize that, even claiming to not view Rory as the first one going home after leading them on the first night. After everyone recognizes how well the women did in the challenge, Jeff calls them to vote, with Brook up first. Brook cast his vote against Chris to save himself, but it was all for naught, as he was voted out in a 5-3-1 vote over Chris and Rory respectively.
==Challenges==
Reward/Immunity Challenge: Fire StarterThis challenge consists of a commando crawl through a mud pit, three players moving a ball through a table maze, grabbing the ball, climbing a ladder to a balance beam, net slide back to the ground, three other players then using provided materials and matches inside the ball to build a fire in a cauldron to burn through a rope, lowering a torch, lighting the torch, and crossing the finish.Reward: FlintWinner: 
==Tribal Council==
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VotedAgainst	Voter
 	
 	
 	
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===Voting Confessionals===
===Final Words===
===Still in the Running===
								
								
==Trivia==
*This episode was meant to last 90 minutes, but production decided to cut it to 60 minutes one week before its airing.http://funny115.com/podcast/historians22.mp3
*This episode is the only time that eventual winner Chris Daugherty received votes against him.
*This is the only pre-merge episode of where Rory Freeman is present at Tribal Council and the eliminated player does not vote against him.
**However, Rory did receive a vote from Brady Finta.
*Lopevi's defeat mirrors Tambaqui's loss during the first Immunity Challenge of , where the all-male tribe dominated through the course, but stumbled with the balance section of the challenge.
**The results of both seasons' first Tribal Councils are also mirrored: a younger, physical contestant (Ryan Aiken and Brook) was voted out, while an older contestant (Roger Sexton and Chris) received three votes, and a third contestant of different ethnicity (Daniel Lue and Rory) received one vote.
**Additionally, both of the voted out contestants cast their vote against the older contestant.
==References==
Category:Episodes
Category:Vanuatu Episodes
Category:Season Premieres
Category:Survivor (U.S.)
Category:Survivor (U.S.) Episodes
Category:Survivor: Vanuatu