Vanuatu

Survivor: Vanuatu · Season 9

Episode Guide

How Survivor: Vanuatu unfolded, week by week.

  1. 1“They Came at Us with Spears”Sep 16, 2004Eighteen castaways arrive in Vanuatu to a booming tribal welcome and an immediate twist: they're split straight down the middle by gender, the men on Lopevi and the women on Yasur. The women drop the first immunity, and at Tribal they land on Brook Geraghty, voted out 5-3-1 to kick off the season.
  2. 2“Burly Girls, Bowheads, Young Studs, and the Old Bunch”Sep 23, 2004Over on Lopevi, the older men, led by the ex-drill-sergeant Lea 'Sarge' Masters, quietly take the wheel and start sizing up which young studs to thin out. When the vote falls back on the women, Dolly Neely, who'd latched onto the wrong people and read as a swing nobody could quite trust, is the one sent home.
  3. 3“Double Tribal, Double Trouble”Sep 30, 2004Both tribes march to Tribal Council the same night in the season's first double elimination. On the men's beach, the older Lopevi alliance keeps culling the younger guys and votes out John Palyok, while at Yasur the women turn on Mia Galeotalanza. Two gone in a single night, and the tribes haven't even mixed yet.
  4. 4“Now That's a Reward!”Oct 7, 2004The men finally hit Tribal, and the older core keeps right on trimming youth and muscle. Brady Finta, athletic and an obvious physical threat down the road, is exactly the kind of young stud the Sarge-led group wants gone before the game opens up, and he's voted out.
  5. 5“Earthquakes and Shake-Ups!”Oct 14, 2004A Day-11 schoolyard switch blows up the tidy gender divide and reshuffles men and women onto new tribes. Travis 'Bubba' Sampson misreads the fresh lines, gets caught trying to work both sides, and is voted out in a near-unanimous thumping once his new tribe decides he can't be trusted.
  6. 6“Hog Tied”Oct 21, 2004The reshuffled tribes settle in, and Lisa Keiffer ends up the odd one out of the new math, never quite finding solid footing after the switch left her short on numbers. She's voted out as the pre-merge field keeps thinning.
  7. 7“Anger, Threats, Tears...and Coffee”Oct 28, 2004Tempers fray as the merge looms. John Kenney, one of the last men stranded on a women-heavy tribe, can't pull the votes his way no matter how he scrambles. He's voted out 5-1, and the guys head toward the merge badly outnumbered.
  8. 8“Now the Battle Really Begins”Nov 4, 2004The tribes merge into Alinta on Day 20, and the women come out of it holding a six-to-four edge over the men. They press it immediately, voting out Rory Freeman 6-4 in the first individual Tribal as the gender war tips lopsided fast.
  9. 9“Gender Wars...It's Getting Ugly”Nov 11, 2004The women's alliance, with Ami Cusack at the wheel and a dream of an all-female final three, keeps swinging at the men. Lea 'Sarge' Masters, the gruff leader of the old Lopevi guys, is the next to fall, voted out 7-1-1 and becoming the first member of the jury. Chris Daugherty is suddenly one of just two men left, with the writing seemingly on the wall.
  10. 10“Culture Shock and Violent Storms”Nov 18, 2004The women keep their machine running and turn to Chad Crittenden, the well-liked teacher who'd gutted out the entire game on a prosthetic leg. Chad is voted out 6-2 to the jury, leaving Chris Daugherty as the very last man standing against six women, and looking dead in the water.
  11. 11“Surprise and...Surprise Again!”Nov 25, 2004Cornered and counted out, Chris goes hunting for cracks in the women's alliance, and he finds them. The older pair of Twila Tanner and Scout Cloud Lee, never fully comfortable inside Ami's younger core, flip to join Chris and Eliza, and the new majority strikes, blindsiding Leann Slaby 4-3 to flip the whole game on its head.
  12. 12“Now Who's in Charge Here?!”Dec 2, 2004With the momentum suddenly his, Chris and his new allies go straight for the head of the snake. Ami Cusack, the architect of the women's alliance who'd been one vote from running the table, is voted out 4-2 and sent to the jury, her all-women endgame in ruins.
  13. 13“Eruption of Volcanic Magnitude”Dec 9, 2004The new alliance keeps trimming the field. Julie Berry, the youngest of the bunch and a real threat to win both challenges and jury hearts at the end, is voted out 3-2, leaving a final four of Chris, Twila, Scout, and Eliza.
  14. 14“Spirits and the Final Four”FinaleDec 16, 2004Finale night, and Chris Daugherty closes out one of the great comebacks the game has produced. He wins the final-four immunity and votes out the feisty Eliza Orlins 3-1, then takes the final immunity too and cuts Scout Cloud Lee loose, choosing to bring Twila Tanner to the end. At Final Tribal the jury weighs Chris's against-all-odds run as the last man standing against Twila's blunter, bridge-burning path through the game, and they reward the comeback, crowning Chris the Sole Survivor 5-2.