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Val says something about how she knows she’s a target and since she doesn’t have an idol yet, she’ll have to make a big move and blah blah blah. She’s still on the outside looking in with regards to relationships and alliances, so this is going to be a tough afternoon for her.

She tells Rocker that she has two idols, which he wonders about since Jeremy showed him the clue at Exile Island. He guesses she must have them, but figures he’ll look around a bit himself. He remembers the instructions from Jeremy’s clue, so he goes off to search for and finds an actual Immunity Idol in short order. We groan. Survivor, we hate you. We’re in hate with you.

With the protection of the idol in his back pocket, Rocker decides to try to find a way to protect Val, which we admittedly were not expecting. He suggests to the Bros that Val has two idols and that she’s planning to use one for herself and one for Jaclyn. Rocker suggests that they split the vote at three for Val and three for Baylor. Wait, what? If you were really trying to protect Val, wouldn’t you do three for Jaclyn and three for Baylor? Oh, we’re sure he has some sort of cunning plan, or perhaps he doesn’t really care about Val’s welfare at all.

For his part, Josh is suspicious of this plan, not least because he is pretty solidly aligned with Baylor. He suggests that Rocker’s plan can work as long as they don’t discuss any details with the girls at all. But you can tell he’s lying. We suspect Josh will apprise Baylor of the situation at first opportunity.

Rocker meets up with Val and tells her that he had promised Jeremy that he’d try to help her out so that Jeremy would watch after Julie over at the other tribe. He tells her that she has to play her idol. Hoisted by her own petard! Even so, she figures that she can rally Jaclyn to vote for Baylor and that will keep her safe.

Things don’t appear to be that cut and dried, though, because even though the show doesn’t show him talking to Baylor, Josh tells us he’s suspicious because Rocker and Val just wandered off together… for the first time ever. He figures that they weren’t hanging out together for fun, so shenanigans are at play. He’s deciding on his best move, and we’re guessing that move is “Vote for Val, the person not in his alliance.”

There’s a lot of discussion about how the tribe can come together, and it’s pretty uninteresting. Then, Val accuses Baylor of double-dealing, saying that the younger girl had originally said she would align with the women, but then shifted to work with the Bros instead. There’s some yelling back and forth but the end result is that basically the people who know Baylor is with them still know it and the women who are pissed about it know she’s with them, too.

Naturally, Val’s “two idols” come up, and Wes says that the best way to flush them out is to toss votes her way. That was a really, really bad move on her part, especially if she’s going to get in a massive fight with a person in the opposing alliance. Worst of all is that it was utterly unnecessary. Rocker really was trying to work with her here, as his vote for Baylor proves.

Probst brings the urn up so that he can reveal the votes, and asks if anyone wants to play an idol. When Val doesn’t play one, Rocker is pretty much blown away and knows that his entire strategy for this vote is dead in the water. Probst reads out the votes and here’s how it goes. Val. Baylor. Val. Baylor. Val. Baylor. Baylor. Val. It’s a tie, so everyone except Val and Baylor will vote again.

Needless to say, Rocker flips his vote out of frustration, saying, “Now I’m gonna look like a liar to your husband.” Val takes all of the votes except for Jaclyn’s, so she’s going over to Ponderosa for the duration of the show. She’s happy with her gameplay because she made big moves and Jeremy will work harder to win. Oooookay.

Next time on Survivor, Jeremy tells everyone about Rocker’s checkered past, and Hunahpu looks like they’ll successfully use that information to rile him up. Meanwhile, Rocker’s girlfriend Julie re-thinks all of her life decisions so far.

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