Zipping Over the Cuckoo's Nest

 is the tenth episode of.

Challenges
Reward Challenge: Muddy Waters Contestants will be broken into two teams. They must go through a small obstacle course. They use the balls they collected to shoot into a basket. First team to get 12 balls in the basket wins.

Reward: Resort trip with a nice lunch.

Winner: Erik, Reynold, Phillip, Dawn, and Cochran

Immunity Challenge: Keel Hauling

Each castaway must pull themselves along a rope under a floating wood platform without coming up for air. The challenge ran in two heats. The two winners of each heat would compete against each other in the final heat. The winner of the final heat wins individual immunity.

Winner: Reynold

Night 25
After a Tribal Council shocker that sent Michael home, the Enil Edam tribe goes back to camp, where the members of the Stealth R Us 2.0 alliance leave the three male outsiders, Eddie, Reynold and Malcolm, and proceed to the beach to have a meeting. Seeing that the meeting will be obviously about strategy, the three men let them be, since they are the obvious targets.

At the beach, the Stealth R Us alliance discuss that one of them should defeat the minority alliance at challenges, and in the event that Malcolm uses his Hidden Immunity Idol, they should just resort to splitting the votes. Meanwhile, Malcolm, Eddie and Reynold decide to look for Reynold's idol the next day, which they presume to be rehidden somewhere at camp. Eddie adds he would rather be on the outside than work for Phillip as a puppet.

Behind the Scenes

 * Dawn explains why she broke down when she lost her retainer. While spending time alone in the lagoon to de-stress herself, she was trying to clean her teeth, and when she spit out water, her bottom teeth fell off. Dawn states that she had an accident a few years ago, thus the need to put on a retainer. Dawn realizes that the game did make her insecure over the course of playing it, with the idea of her getting voted out constantly plaguing her. However, despite the constant paranoia the game brings, Dawn is nonetheless grateful for Brenda's unconditional kindness.
 * Cochran calls Dawn "extremely volatile" after her breakdown, being happy and upbeat one second, but emotional and "manic" the next. Cochran says that the game really takes a toll on someone, no matter who the person is in his or her personal life.
 * Brenda blames Malcolm for losing the Reward Challenge, saying that though Malcolm boasted that he won the said challenge in his first season by devising a strategy (collecting the other bags of balls for his teammates for easy access), he panicked tremendously, eating up a lot of time for their team.
 * Eddie expresses his frustration on Sherri slowing his team down at the Reward Challenge, calling her the "plague" of any team she is on.
 * Erik is shocked and amazed that his team, consisted of Phillip, the oldest contestant in the game, and Cochran, known as being woefully weak at challenges, actually won the challenge.
 * Phillip elaborately explains the reason why he forfeited the Immunity Challenge. He states that when he was 7 years old, he fell into a pond at Springwater, New York, where he got stuck below a deck while swimming. He had to be dragged out. He adds that even if he competed at the challenge, he had no shot of winning to due to his age.

Other

 * This is the third episode in which multiple Hidden Immunity Idols were played.
 * However, this is the first episode in which both idols voided at least one vote.
 * This is the second consecutive episode where Malcolm Freberg played an idol, but did not receive the most votes.
 * Coincidentally, in the last Tribal Council someone gave him an Idol, while in this Tribal Council, he gave an Idol to someone else.
 * Similar to Dead Man Walking, Malcolm revealed an Idol that he had to the entire tribe in an episode where the person voted off finishes in tenth place. While he didn't play that Idol, he gave this one to Eddie Fox.
 * Also similar, the intended target won individual immunity, while the person leading the campaign against them was voted out.
 * This is the first time Phillip Sheppard has been voted out.
 * While Jeff Probst explained how to spell Phillip's name prior to the vote, Erik Reichenbach still spelled it wrong.
 * With Phillip's elimination, all Favorites have had their torches snuffed at one point during their runs in Survivor.
 * The Reward Challenge was used previously in.
 * The Immunity Challenge was used previously in.
 * Reynold's win in the Immunity Challenge makes him the first Fan to win Individual Immunity this season.
 * Phillip became the first contestant to outright forfeit an Individual Challenge without reaping some sort of a reward. Previous forfeitures had contestants being given an opportunity to compete at the challenge or just eat at a banquet nearby.
 * The Survivor Rulebook normally does not allow forfeiture of challenges. Phillip did not receive a penalty; however, he was voted out as a result of not having immunity.
 * This is the first time since She Annoys Me Greatly that Brenda gets a confessional, breaking her record eight episode streak without a confessional.

Episode Title

 * The title is quoted by John Cochran saying that Dawn Meehan is "zipping over the cuckoo's nest" after Brandon Hantz has already flown over it.