At the reward challenge, Jonathan heroically drags around his bum leg, insisting it"s getting better when it clearly isn"t. After Airai takes the reward -- which is having locals come and help you figure out how to live in their environment and not die -- Probst brings in medical to take a look at the knee. The doctor opens up the bandage to see that Jonathan"s puncture wound, inexplicably allowed to happen in a challenge where pointy things were mixed with dragging, is not healing. On the contrary, it"s got a raging infection going, which she gets him to admit seems to be working its way up to his lymph nodes. She can"t force him to do anything, but she urges him in the strongest language she can muster to leave the game so he can be admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics and surgical work to clean out the wound. Jonathan resists at first, but she tells him that the infection isn"t far from becoming entirely systemic and thus life-threatening. "What can you do?" Probst asks sympathetically, and Jonathan weepily gives in. He leaves his friends, he leaves his beloved game, and he takes a dignified but very difficult exit. Poor baby. Fortunately, Probst later gives the news that Jonathan did well once he made it into the arms of real doctors, and if you"re sitting around thinking that the real villain here is whoever designed that idiotic challenge in the first place, then you and I are on the same page.
The immunity challenge brings James an opportunity to use all that strength for something, as he short-circuits a two-pole balancing challenge by just muscling Eliza, and then Parvati, across the course with one of the poles. It"s complicated; you"d have to see it. Anyway, Airai wins again, and Malakal is faced with sending someone home. The obvious target is Chet, but Ami is kind of annoyed with Cirie"s continuing arrogance toward the fans (similar to Cirie"s earlier arrogance toward Jonathan, and supporting the Cirie-has-read-her-own-press theory), to the point where she"s willing to align with Erik, Tracy, and Chet to vote out Cirie. Or Ozzy, who is the other possibility. Unfortunately, Chet decides that he"s had enough. He has an infected foot, but really, he has a terrible case of not wanting to be there anymore, and he takes a powder, providing Cirie with an incredible stroke of luck she will undoubtedly never acknowledge. So Chet goes home, and the Pagonging of the fans begins.
Okay, but what"s great? Is that earlier in the episode, Jason and Chet go to Exile Island, and Jason finds the idiotically obvious fake idol that Ozzy made -- which is literally nothing but a stick with eyes and a mouth carved in it -- and he decides it"s real, just like Ozzy hoped. So that"s going to pay off down the line.