2. Negotiating for rice
When it got down to the Final Seven, it became glaringly evident that the tribe didn’t have enough rice to get through 42 days. With rice being all they had to eat, that was a big problem.
It finally got so bad that Jeff Probst had to intervene. He arrived at the Barramundi camp to make a deal with the Final Seven: He’d provide them with enough rice to get them through 42 days, but it wasn’t going to come cheap.
To get the container of rice, Barramundi had to tear down most of their entire shelter. That meant surrendering their tarp, blankets, and Colby’s Texas flag. The first two made sense, but the flag was Colby’s luxury item (remember when they had those?) so that hardly seemed fair that he had to part with his luxury item.
Once the shelter from the rain was gone, of course, it rained constantly, and the contestants never got a good night’s sleep once their protection from the elements was no more. Viewers saw how brutal the game was through their hardship, and when the flood washed away that container, it was tough to watch.
Thankfully Tina and Keith got the rice back, but for a minute, you wondered if the Final Six had given up their shelter for nothing.
We did see a rice negotiation in a recent season, David vs. Goliath and that was brought up by the tribe themselves. So while the seasons don’t seem NEARLY as harsh now as they did two decades ago, teams still have to survive the elements and ration their food.