The Marooning

The Marooning is the first episode of Survivor: Borneo and the very first episode of the entire franchise.

Day 1
The castaways run up and down a boat, grabbing supplies and throwing them overboard to their tribe’s raft. Jennifer shouts out orders, throwing items at Jessica and Joshua who in turn throw them overboard. Naomi and Amanda fight over a pot, with Naomi managing to grab it and jump overboard with it. Eugene cuts the Tagi raft as it hits the water, with everyone diving off to join him. Jennifer encourages her own tribe off the boat, with Bianca hesitating to jump as Jennifer cuts the raft loose after a few chops. She takes Bianca’s hand and they jump together, Bianca screaming.

As both groups gather their supplies, they begin to paddle towards their designated beaches, which will act as home for the next thirty-nine days.

Pagong
Under Jennifer’s direction, the tribe work together to get their supplies onto the raft. With some help, Sean hoists the smallest tribe members Amanda and Rory onto the raft so that they can hold on to the supplies. Everyone else kicks together to propel the raft towards the island.

Working together, the tribe arrive at the beach out of breath but excited to have docked at their new home. Rory and Amanda get to work pulling the raft onto the shore, before everyone begins to greet each other.

Everyone embraces, the tribe shouting “Pagong!” as they let go.

Bianca goes quiet after this, with the tribe getting to work on collecting materials for shelter building. Once they have enough resources, Jennifer divides the group in two. Boys focus on constructing the shelter and the girls work on weaving palm leaves to act as roofing.

As the men get to work on making a basic skeleton for their shelter, Sean and Joshua focus on tying pieces of wood together to make a foundation that the tribe can sleep on. Rory is left in charge of sawing wood to particular sizes, while Hector holds pieces still and helps with the architecture. Rory can clearly be seen struggling to saw through the wood.

As he says this, the wood he's cutting gives way, causing him to fall as he follows through. Hector lets out a laugh, helping him up.

Hector stands behind Rory and shows him the proper way to saw through wood, with the next cut they make looking a lot cleaner. As the boys continue to construct the shelter, the girls finish up their weaving.

Sean walks up to the girls, giving a wink to Bianca as he does.

Amanda is seen rolling her eyes as Bianca and Sean walk off into the forest. Joshua, Hector and Rory join the girls.

Meanwhile, Sean is seen holding a stack of palm leaves as Bianca jumps and pulls at leaves to rip them from the trees.

Sean and Bianca eventually return to camp, with the rest of the tribe giving each other looks upon their return. The tribe spends the rest of the day fixing a roof to their shelter, with Rory proving to be a much better thatcher than carpenter. As the stars come out, the tribe collapse into bed, exhausted from their hard work. Sean is seen to be sleeping beside Bianca after all.

Tagi
Amy and Naomi climb up onto the raft, holding the items while the rest of the tribe kick at the back to try and move their boat. However, it is clear to see that Drew is struggling and runs out of breath quickly.

After a few more minutes, Christian shouts for the group to stop and tells Drew to get on the raft. This in turn starts to make the raft sink, a few supplies drifting in to the water. Naomi offers to paddle for a while, with Terry then suggesting that the group take it in turns to rest, Alicia disagrees, joking that he's strong enough to make it to the beach by himself. This annoys Terry, but before he can reply, Christian instructs the group to just keep going as they're wasting energy treading water.

The group do eventually make it to the beach, pushing through under Christian's direction. Drew is still panting, as Amy quickly skips over him to greet the rest of the tribe. Everyone hugs, with the exception of Alicia and Terry who manage to miss each other. Naomi helps Drew out of the boat, shaking his hand.

The group decide it's best to go round and introduce themselves, explaining what they do and a little bit about why they're here. Terry insists on starting, with Alicia rolling her eyes at this.

Samantha's leg is covered in blood, the tribe quickly urge her to sit down. She instructs them how to proceed, getting Alicia to raise her leg while Terry takes off his tank top to use as a makeshift bandage. Naomi brings some water from the ocean to try and wash the leg of the dried blood. The group help Samantha up to lean against a tree at the edge of the beach. Naomi offers to look after her, claiming she has mild first aid training from her job. Everyone agrees this is for the best, despite Samantha's best efforts to insist that she is okay.

Christian begins to assign people roles based on their skills from the introductions. He suggests Naomi looks after Samantha and that they stick to weaving leaves for a roof. Eugene and Alicia are asked to look at the structure of the shelter, while the rest of the tribe gather materials for building.

Everyones sets off to do their assigned tasks. Eugene and Alicia begin to map out a shelter using sticks and driftwood, with Eugene laying out a basic structure. Alicia surveys the structure, before picking up a handful of sticks and moving them to the other side of their plans.

After some back and forth, Eugene backs down to letting Alicia structure the shelter as she sees fit. The gatherers return within this time, getting to work on cutting up wood to match the template set in place. Samantha keeps offering to help with the wood cutting, but Naomi insists she stay to the side and weave. Leaving the bigger men to do more of the heavy lifting, Eugene, Amy and Alicia agree to also help weave more leaves for the roof.

After a few hours, the tribe is able to construct a slightly lopsided shelter that is clearly not very sturdy. They all stand around, looking somewhat unimpressed.

Alicia encourages the tribe to all lie in the shelter, having to awkwardly ask the 'heavier people' if they'll sleep on the less stable side. Miracuously, the shelter does balance out because of this, though some people are clearly unimpressed at having their weights declared to the entire tribe.

While lying in the shelter, Eugene ends up beside Amy, blushing quite heavily because of this. She notices this, suddenly looking back to the roof of the shelter.

Amy begins to panic, jumping out of the shelter which in turn makes it move a little.

The tribe spend half an hour looking for the earrings, but then thigns begin to get dark. Eugene suggests they might have fallen under the shelter when Amy was lying down, Amy demands they move the shelter to look for the earring, with everyone going quiet at the suggestion.

This causes Amy to go quiet, Eugene suggests they could try figuring out a way to look under the shelter tomorrow, but no one seems enthusiastic about the idea of destroying their one form of comfort. The tribe agree to search more in the sunlight, but rest for the night until then.

Pagong
As the sun rises on the Pagong beach, Jessica is seen sitting by the shore, looking out at the ocean. She lets out a long sigh, rubbing her eyes. Jessica stays looking at the ocean as the rest of the tribe wake up. Hector, Amanda and Bianca also complain about a painful first night, hoping they can find something to make their sleeping arrangements more comfortable as the days pass. As Jessica rejoins the group, discussion turns to how thirsty and hungry the tribe is. The tribe agree to put their efforts into making fire to boil water. Both Hector and Jennifer offer to work on fire, with Hector citing his previous experience in the scouts. Joshua, Rory and Sean also offer to search for a food supply around the rockpools. Amanda, Bianca and Jessica get the water bottles ready to fill up at the well.

Jennifer and Hector begin to bicker over the best way to light a fire, with things getting heated.

The girls getting the water bottles ready notice this, Amanda is quick to interfene as she escorts Hector into the jungle. Jessica and Bianca comfort a worked up Jennifer who has snapped the stick she was holding in half. As Amanda and Hector walk through the jungle, Hector is still visibly irritated. Amanda gets him to sit down.

Hector thanks Amanda for being understanding, with the two returning to camp. The girls seems grateful to Amanda for acting as a mediator, unaware of what Hector and her actually spoke about. It is decided that Jennifer will instead go get the water, with Hector and Amanda now working on fire since the sun has come out. As the day moves on, the tribe collect water and after a few hours, Hector does manage to get fire so that they can boil it. The boys return with a few clams and crabs that will see the group through the night, before a larger search tomorrow. However, no one is particularly thrilled at how small a serving they'll receive tonight. Bianca walks towards the group, balancing a collection of coconuts in her arms.

With Jessica going back to lie in the shelter, the rest of the tribe get ready for a game of water polo. The girls wear their buffs as a sports jersey, with the match ending up being quite evenly weighted. Everyone seems to enjoy themselves, with Jennifer in particular getting stuck in as she tackles Sean into the water.

Tagi
Naomi walks up the shoreline with a bucket of water, the rest of the tribe are seen to still be asleep in their shelter that has miracuously survived the night. She leaves the bucket to one side, taking the machette and beginning to carve off strips of tinder from some of the leftover firewood.

Naomi continues to whittle away at the wood until she has enough tinder to make a small fire. After this she begins to rub two sticks together, with very little effect happening. The noise of this wakes up Samantha, who watches her for a while.

Naomi reluctantly hands the sticks over to Samantha, who shows her how to properly start a fire by placing a base for the girls to make smoke from. Naomi blows on the smoke while Samantha works hard to create friction, with the two eventually getting a small fire lit that they're able to nurture with some of the excess wood from building the shelter.

Naomi and Samantha continue to talk about their children as the rest of the tribe slowly wakes up. Everyone is impressed by the fire, thanking both women for putting in extra effort. The tribe agree to split up and look for water and food today. Amy asks about her earring, with the tribe agreeing that they can look for it after they've completed the more important tasks.

Naomi and Samantha are asked to watch the fire while Terry and Eugene offer to go find the tribe's main water source. Everyone else is deployed to look for food, with Alicia and Christian searching the forest while Drew and Amy look in rockpools.

Meanwhile, Alicia and Christian walk through the forest, discussing their lives back home. Alicia reveals that she is trying to make a business out of her artwork, which Christian jokes he could advertise on his blog.

Christian points at a bush that has red berries on them. He recognises them from a wilderness survival book that he read before the game. They begin to collect the berries in silence, Alicia blushing red as they do so. Having collected as many berries as they're able to carry, both Alicia and Christian head back to camp. Alicia eats a few berries on the way, with Christian promising not to tell anyone. They arrive back to find everyone has returned from their tasks, with Amy going to hug Christian immediately.

Christian and Alicia show the tribe their berries, with Alicia suddenyl dropping her basket and throwing up to the side of camp. This causes everyone to panic slightly, except for Naomi who goes over to pat her on the back. Christian leans down to inspect the berries, sighing.

Alicia vomits again, with Christian going back to address the camp and explain what has happened. Most people seem to understand, though no one is overly eager to try the red berries now either. Christian gets annoyed at this, taking some in hand and eating them himself to prove that they're fine.

Christian sighs, taking Alicia's basket and telling the tribe he is going to sort through it to see if there's any salvageable berries from it. Amy follows him down the beach, offering to help.

Christian and Amy spend the rest of the afternoon sorting through the red and blue berries. Upon returning to camp, Christian reveals that he hasn't thrown up the red berries, with some of the tribe agreeing to eat them because of this. Alicia spends the rest of the night in the shelter, with Naomi now looking after two patients instead of just the one.

Day 3
Both tribes receive their tree mail, letting them know that they will be facing their first immunity challenge, and which ever tribe loses will visit tribal council, voting out their first member. This person will also hold the distinction of being the first person ever to be voted out of Survivor.

Challenge: Quest for Fire

Tribes must guide a raft as they lit a series of torches along the way. Throughout the challenge, tribe members must have a hand touch the raft at all times. Upon reaching shore, the tribe must light the remaining torches before setting their side of the fire spirit ablaze. First tribe to set fire on their side of the fire spirit wins the challenge.

Winner: Tagi Information (Pagong): Bianca performs exceptionally well, chanting encouragements as the tribe run in unison. Amanda and Sean also do well, with Sean lighting the torches as the tribe run. Joshua and Jessica manage to keep up with the pace, performing avaregly. Rory struggles somewhat with the weight of the boat on the running part, but pushes through. Jennifer and Hector both struggle, having to make the tribe stop at points while they caught their breaths. Information (Tagi): Naomi takes the lead for the tribe, evenly distributing everyone before the challenge begins. Naomi, Alicia and Terry all perform well, with Terry lighting the torches easily. Drew and Amy are able to keep up, with the tribe working better as a unit. Eugene has a slight wobble when the tribe leave the water, but recovers well. Samantha still struggles a little with her sore foot, while Christian panics a bit in the water at the start of the challenge.

Pagong
Pagong return to camp, all feeling deflated from losing the first challenge and nervous at the prospect of being the first person to leave the game. Jennifer makes an apology to the team for her performance, feeling largely to blame for their loss.

Rory walks off down the beach, with Jennifer quickly following him. The rest of the tribe stand in an awkward silence, which Amanda breaks by saying that she's thirsty and needs some water. A lot of the tribe nod in agreement, as the group walk back to the firepit.

Meanwhile, Jennifer walks down the beach to a curled up Rory who is sitting hugging his legs beside a rock. She sits with him, and the two discuss what just happened.

Back at camp, Amanda and Joshua offer to go get water for the tribe, walking along the jungle path as they discuss the first vote.

Amanda and Joshua agree to talk with Jessica and Sean seperately to see if they can form a voting alliance. Joshua talks to Jessica and she seems on board to work with them. Amanda talks to Sean though, who seems more uncertain, especially when he learns who the group would be targetting. With tribal approaching, Sean manages to pull Joshua aside for one final conversation on the beach. Sean is aware that some of the tribe will be voting for Hector and that some of the tribe will be voting for the alliance's target. He just doesn't know which side they should choose.

The group gather their torches and head to the first tribal council of the season. While there, Jeff talks to the group about their first few days settling in. Everyone agrees that Jennifer took charge of the group and most of the tribe nod when he asks if she was a good leader. Hector's outspokeness is brought up by the group, with both Jennifer and Rory claiming to have had issues living with him over the past few days. Amanda comes to his defence, suggesting that Hector has always been honest and that the group will always know where they stand with him. Bianca doesn't agree with this though, saying he has been horrible to live with from day one and been nothing but confrontational. This causes Hector to get annoyed, belittling Bianca's work ethic by claiming that she just didn't like him telling her to get on with work. Bianca doesn't agree with this, saying she worked harder than Hector in the challenge. Probst seems stunned by how much tension already exists within the tribe, inviting Jennifer to kick off the voting. Each tribe member is confident in writing down a name, with only Sean pausing as he struggles to take the lid off the pen.

Hector seems genuinely shocked, refusing to look at anyone as he makes his way up to have his torch snuffed. Amanda seems visibly annoyed, while Rory and Jennifer both smile at each other. Sean pats Bianca on the shoulder, while Joshua laughs a little as Hector has his torch snuffed. Probst notes that this is clearly a tribe with tension, but hopes that tonight's tribal council will have eased some of that tension.