Fighters Never Quit

Survivor 16:5 Micronesia minicap Part 1 - Johnny Bye Bye

One thing I can say about Jonathan Penner - the man's a fighter.

The latest episode of SURVIVOR was a real heart breaker....seriously, if your eyes didn't well up or your heart didn't end up in your throat, you must be as frosty as the neighborhood snowman. But I digress....let us go back to the beginning, which on SURVIVOR is the recaps.

As you may recall, Tracy and the gang let Cirie and the Favorites believe they orchestrated the ouster of Joel, once again saving Chet. But during the dangerous reward challenge, numerous players - most notably Jonathan, but also Parvati, Ami and Chet - were injured. We were treated to some night vision surgery, which was really painful to watch and probably not fun to live through, either. Okay, onto this week's action!

Strategy - Ami realizes she's a woman without an alliance, and lets the fans on her team know her vote is up for grabs. It's Tracy who does the grabbing. She and Ami discuss teaming up with the other fans to off Cirie. Wow, wouldn't that be awesome?

Anyway, onto the other tribe, where Jonathan and Eliza are pretty much thinking the same thing. They've agreed to join with the remaining fans to off Parvati and James. But just when you thought you were saw (cue shark music).....

Reward challenge. In a nutshell: each team is given a set amount of time to create barriers in the other team's "tunnel," then will have to crawl through their own tunnel, deconstructing the barriers as necessary. Jonathan, obviously in pain, does amazing work as he pulls apart barriers and drags his basically dead leg out of the tunnel and back to the mat. Airai wins reward (two Micronesians, who will accompany them to camp and teach them how to live island life right). And then it all starts unraveling....

Jeff, who noticed Jonathan's obvious pain in play, calls in a medic who basically tells Penner he's endangering himself if he remains. He has an infection (and they show the pus-filled wound, to drive the point home) that has moved on to his lymph nodes. "It's potentially fatal," she tells him, and you can see the fight in his eyes as he struggles with this decision. But this is Jonathan, after all - the man who best summed up the game with his line, "There are no villains in Monopoly," during his first season. He realizes, bottom line, it's just a game - one he loves and wants to play and win, but still not worth losing his leg or life for. "I had this game," he tells those on the beach. "I saw the daylight." And he probably did...he and Eliza had a viable plan, and he was smart enough and savvy enough to survive the merge and make it, maybe even to the end.

But it wasn't to be. Darn those challenge planners! And so the bluest eyed Survivor ever leaves the game - and there's not a dry eye in the tribe. Penner, you will be missed....by Eliza, by your tribe, and especially by the viewers who are true fans of the game.

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Fighters Never Quit

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