How Hard Could It Be?

Cirie caught her first fish after asking herself, "How hard could it be?" Fishing's easy: be patient, and be smarter than the fish. She applied the same logic to Survivor and was able to cleverly engineer Courtney's ouster.

It was obvious that Cirie was a good deal smarter than at least one of her competitors. Shane spent the morning of day 28 pretending that a piece of wood was a BlackBerry email device. Too bad his son never actually received the "omg britneys preggers agin! o rly? YA RLY! lol @ teh o rly owl!" message Shane thought he was sending.

At the Reward Challenge, castaways were split into two teams: Cirie, Aras, and Shane vs. Terry, Danielle, and Courtney. Each individual was hooked to a rope, which they followed into the water over and under a series of obstacles. At the end, they each unhooked from the rope, retrieved a bag from under the water, clipped back onto the rope, and navigated their way back to the beach.

Halfway through the obstacle portion, Cirie, Aras, and Shane became tangled in the rope, with no chance of catching up. The winning team sent Aras to Exile Island, and Cirie and Shane headed back to camp.

Terry, Danielle, and Courtney were ready to enjoy their reward, a barbecue on a private island, when Jeff Probst announced that they would immediately play a second Reward Challenge. The first person to break three tiles using a slingshot won a GMC Yukon. Of course, Terry won.

Upon reaching the private island, the winners cruised around in Terry's new SUV -- which he called "righteous" -- before enjoying their feast. Terry suggested to Courtney and Danielle that they team up, taking Cirie with them to the final four and voting Aras out as soon as possible.

Courtney agreed, but Danielle wasn't so sure she wanted to make things so easy for Terry. The odds of one of the women beating him in the final three challenge would be slim. And after last week's question-answer challenge revealed that no one likes Courtney, she, and not Danielle, would be Terry's obvious choice for an opponent to take to the final two.

Back at camp, Cirie decided to try her hand at fishing, after her snail dinner crawled out of the cooking pot. The same woman who said on day one that she was afraid of leaves cracked open a snail's shell, used it to bait a hook, and then landed the biggest fish caught this season.

She did squeal in disgust the whole time, and she held the fish at arms length yelling, "Is it dead yet?" and "Somebody help me!" as she walked back to camp. But, once there, she acted like the brave huntress she wanted the others to see her as. Cirie and Shane waited to show her prize to the three reward winners before eating the fish.

On the morning of the Immunity Challenge, Danielle voiced her concerns to Terry about his final two strategy. He said he'd agree to taking the second place finisher of the last immunity challenge to the final vote if he won, provided she agree to do the same. She did, and went to tell the other ladies of the new deal.

They weren't as thrilled as she was. Danielle explained to Courtney that the strategy rewarded hard work, which Courtney interpreted (correctly) to mean that she wasn't considered a hard worker or a tough competitor. And Cirie simply didn't believe Terry would honor the deal, not when he could easily beat Courtney in the final vote. Plus, Cirie knew the new alliance would likely put her in fourth place.

Strategy talk was put on hold for the Immunity Challenge. Each contestant knelt on a plank suspended over water and held onto two ropes that held the equivalent of 20% of their own body weight. Every 15 minutes, 10% of their weight would be added to the ropes. Once they let go of the ropes, they would fall into the water, eliminating them from the challenge.

Shane had a poor grip on his ropes, losing one and then the other before any additional weight was added. Once 15 minutes elapsed and contestants had to hold up 30% of their weight, Cirie took a dive, followed by Danielle and Aras.

Terry and Courtney were evenly matched until 30 minutes elapsed and 10% more weight was added, for a total of 40%. The weight began to pull Courtney up off of her knees, and she lasted less than a minute before losing her grip. Terry won again, saving his hidden Immunity Idol for another day and forcing the original members of Casaya to vote out one of their own.

Upon returning to camp, Cirie executed one of the smartest and most complex voting strategies ever used on Survivor: she successfully convinced the members of three alliances that she was with them solidly.

First, Cirie dealt with Courtney, consenting to vote with her, Danielle, and Terry to eliminate Aras.

Courtney and Cirie then met with Aras and Shane, their original alliance, and both agreed to vote for Danielle. Secretly, Courtney still planned to vote for Aras. But unknown to anyone else (yet), Cirie had no intentions of letting either Danielle or Aras go.

At this point, Shane was sure that four votes would be cast for Danielle, while Terry and Courtney believed that four votes would be cast for Aras.

Knowing that Shane and Terry wanted Courtney as their opponent in the final two, Cirie was determined that Courtney must go. Cirie pulled Aras and Danielle aside and told them that the three of them needed to vote for Courtney, since the other three votes were split between Danielle and Aras.

Aras, Cirie's ally from the beginning, agreed to the plan. Mindful of Danielle's skittish nature, Cirie convinced Danielle that her only way to guarantee lasting another day was to vote for Courtney. And Cirie emphasized that they could not tell anyone of their new plan, especially Shane, unless they wanted him to lose his mind.

The new alliance of three kept their game faces on, surprising Shane, Terry, and especially Courtney at Tribal Council. By successfully deceiving the members of two alliances, Cirie's brilliantly engineered scheme rivalled Rob Cesternino's plan to boot Alex from Survivor: Amazon -- to this point, the benchmark for Survivor strategy.

Next week, Aras and Cirie try to smooth things over with Shane. But how stressed can Cirie be, knowing she just made it a lot harder for Shane or Terry to win, and a lot easier for herself?