The fourth challenge was the one-on-one battles on platforms where the Ulong women did well and the men… didn’t. Part of the reason for Ulong’s loss here is that their dwindling numbers meant Koror could pick and choose who to sit out – like Willard. And it seemed at times they just didn’t try as hard as Koror.
The fifth challenge wasn’t really for immunity, but rather the chance to pick who on the other team received immunity (though they didn’t know it at the time). Once again, Ulong’s teamwork failed. The challenge was to dive for sake bottles. Ibrehem took far too long and still didn’t get a bottle.
The sixth challenge was to tie up a box and then cover it up with lumber, then to undo the other team’s work. Koror had a plan, Ulong was scattered. First, James assured everybody that he could tie a great knot – except it wasn’t so great. Then, when they were supposed to go into the water to get lumber and add more knots, James was busy with his clothing. Koror worked well as a team. Ulong didn’t.
Seventh was the slide puzzle challenge. Why Ulong put Bobby Jon in charge, I’ll never understand. Coby worked well for Koror, but Bobby Jon never seemed to fully get a grasp on the puzzle. Eventually, they swapped out and put Stephenie in his place – she did make progress, but by then it was far too late.
The final tribal immunity challenge involved swimming underwater to get puzzle pieces, running and balancing to bring them back, putting the puzzle together, doing a word search, and figuring out the final answer. Once again, it was a challenge that required many different skills, and while Ulong did okay in some of them, they simply couldn’t put it all together. They especially fell apart when trying to solve the puzzle. Again, it seemed that even though there were only two of them left, they just couldn’t work well together.
In Survivor history, we have seen tribes that didn’t particularly get along with one another. Yet somehow they often put that aside to work for the common goal of immunity. But on Ulong, it seemed to not even be that they didn’t get along. Maybe not getting along would have been better, because it would have shown some sort of emotion when it came to their team. Instead, Ulong functioned as a group of individuals.
Meanwhile, Koror knew how to work as a team. They didn’t always like each other, but they knew how to work together. They went on hunting parties together. They found the flint that had gone overboard together. Coby even went so far as to say it was the first time he really felt part of a team.
Ulong was a “pretty” tribe that just never came together. Early on, they thought they would kick Koror’s butt. Instead, they performed so poorly that from now on, whenever we see a Survivor tribe that gets repeatedly beaten, we will talk about them being “Ulonged.”
David Bloomberg is the Editor of the Reality TV Hall of Shame, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.
