Idol Speculation: “Survivor 46” Episode 11: Too Cute

Look, I’m gonna try not to be too harsh here.  An idol is a big secret to keep, and I can only imagine the temptation to spill the beans is enormous.  But really, Venus?  Really?  You couldn’t resist the coy hints for just a few extra hours?  Hell, you were one of the few people this season who actually TRIED to keep a lid on their idol for a bit.  Disappointing, man.  Just disappointing.  

Before we get into the disappointment that is this episode overall, let’s talk about last one, which is still a highlight of the season.  Despite that, however, it is not immune from another edition of…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

There was just too much fun stuff to talk about last episode, and a few points I wanted to make kind of fell through the cracks.  Going out of chronological order here, I neglected to mention one point about Charlie’s win.  The last immunity challenge focussed on grip strength, and Charlie admits that he’s been training on grip strength for two years.  Honestly?  Good for him.  Be prepared for a bunch of people to say they need to phase out these challenges because people are preparing for them, though.  I kid, I kid.  

The second point I’ll bring up, albeit one from earlier in the episode, is that pretty much everyone, outside Maria, dismisses Q’s game, saying that he’s “checked out” or “given up”, usually accompanied by shots of him lying down on a dinghy on the beach.  I get why they have that perception, and I won’t say Q’s game has been exactly stellar up until this point, but I do think this is selling him a bit short.  With how much he got himself in the dog house socially over the last few episodes, him lying low is more of a strategic move than him not wanting to be there or anything.  

I bring this up because, now that Q seems to have at least a bit of say in how the game goes again, the morose spot on the dinghy is now vacant.  It is quickly filled by Kenzie, who notes this is the first time she’s been out of the loop on a vote, and does not take it well.  Charlie does his best to console her, but even out of confessional, Kenzie gets a bit emotional, asking over and over why no one thought they could tell her.  Gee, Kenzie, you think it may have to do with them proposing doing the move and you backing out?  Think that might have given off the wrong impression?  Look, Kenzie is hardly the WORST post-Tribal reaction I’ve yet seen, but she still comes off a bit entitled, and “giving up”, at least to the same extent Q is.  

Man, everyone is obsessed with people stealing “their moves” this season.  Case in point, Maria is now taking credit for getting out Tiffany.  Something I might warn her against doing given what happened to Emily in this exact same episode of “Survivor 45”, but Maria hasn’t seen that season, so I’ll let it slide.  Still, as with Emily, this gets into some people’s heads.  Specifically Venus, who correctly notes that Maria has been a stealth threat, growing more and more powerful as the game goes on.  Say what you will about Venus, but she has been the one this season most consistent in sussing out threats, and trying to get people to target them.  

The flaw in Venus’ game is no one takes her seriously.  She speaks the truth, but others do not listen.  Case in point, she goes to console Kenzie on the misery dinghy, but Kenzie is too caught up in said misery to do much of anything about it.  Must be really frustrating for Venus.  

Morning brings with it an idol hunt, with Q kicking things off.  Hunter was a bit of a question mark, but Tiffany’s idol was basically public knowledge at this point.  As such, one by one, everyone goes off and starts looking.  I applaud pretty much all of this cast for looking through with sticks rather than their hands.  Venus is our narrator for this segment, and notes that she has an advantage, since she knows where players like Randen and Tiffany found theirs, giving her some idea of what to look for.  This logic bears out, and Venus finds the idol under a rock.  Furthering her good play here, she resolves to tell no one (probably a wise decision, given what’s happened to every other idol holder who told people this season), and even participates in the idol hunt longer than she needs to, in order to keep up appearances.  All smart decision-making, though I do think she’s a bit too militant about it.  Reading the idol note takes like two minutes, Venus.  You can probably do that somewhere private without arousing suspicion.  

With the idol found, that leaves the rest of the day to discuss strategy…JUST KIDDING, MORE IDOL HUNTING!  This time in pairs, however, so it’s totally different!  Kenzie and Venus end up teaming up, and here we see that Venus’ perception as a “princess” may have some advantages she’s not considering.  Specifically, while Venus does try to keep up the perception of her needing to idol hunt, and pokes around a bit, she’s half-assing it, particularly when compared to Kenzie.  Kenzie DOES take notice of this, bur rather than become suspicious that Venus may have an idol, she chalks it up to Venus just not being that into the game.  I get that it’s not exactly a nice label, Venus, but you have to admit, it has its upside.  

My earlier snark aside, we do eventually get strategy talk.  Shock of all shocks, people are still mad at Q!  Despite Maria suggesting that the five who voted together should make up the final five, Liz in particular is not on board with that, correctly surmising that she’s at the bottom of that alliance.  Still, if they’re going to move against that group, they need one more person to flip.  Given that he’s “Mr. Sociability” at this point, Charlie is the one they go for.  You’d think he’d be a bit reluctant, given how close he and Maria have been up until this point, but surprisingly, Charlie is actually relatively on board.  

And I doubt it’s because of Kenzie’s salesmanship.  I get calling Maria a threat at the end, since her star is rising.  But Q?  The guy who pretty much everyone still in the game aside from Maria HATES at this point?  The only way he’s threatening is possibly in challenges, and if you look at track record, CHARLIE’S arguably more threatening in that category.  The last few episodes, the narrative has been “Q is so awful”, the implication being that he’s kept around due to being a number with nowhere else to go, and an easy person to beat at the end.  Now suddenly he’s this big jury threat who needs to go ASAP.  These two things cannot be true at the same time.  Consistency in the narrative is all I ask, show.  

But back to Charlie.  No, his real reason for considering the alliance is that he notes that Q is more a number for Maria than anything, and that threatens his position, particularly given that Maria is one of the few people left Charlie isn’t guaranteed to beat in the end.  Honestly?  He’s correct here.  It’s certainly risky to break up the Siga 3, particularly when they’re the dominant alliance left, but then again, Q is at best the fourth of the Siga 3.  Yeah, Maria might be hurt if you blindside one of her numbers, but where’s she going to go, huh?  Venus sees her as a threat, so unless she can get Q and Kenzie to work together, her best option is to still work with you.  Yes, Q is a goat at the end at this point (despite Kenzie’s desperate sales pitch), but Charlie is one of the people left who needs to worry more about getting to the end than getting there with people he can beat.  As such, much better to leave yourself as the only option for everyone else.  

Off to our challenge, and despite it mostly being a generic obstacle course, the ending is quite a fun one.  The first part is “Make your way over obstacles while holding a ball on a long pole”, as first seen on “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, which is pretty played out at this point.  But the ending takes the “Snake Maze” we’ve seen so much of before, and puts a twist on it.  Rather than moving the maze, and navigating a ball around holes, players put a ball on a disk on a stick, and must move that to goals around RAISED bumps, basically inverting the original concept.  Kind of a cool shake-up, and while the challenge as a whole is still just ok, I’ll take it at this point.  

This challenge does prove to be a great equalizer.  Even Ben, who struggles the most on one leg of this challenge (another missed opportunity for “That does not rock”), makes it to the ending, and everyone even gets a ball in the first goal.  Venus and Maria end up being the most consistent, getting to the end multiple times, but it’s Maria who ekes out a win here.  Good thing Q was mentioned as a target just as much, if not more, than her, because otherwise this would be very boring!  

Maria also wins the right to bring people along to a pizza reward, which she… Does not handle well.  She states she wants it to be based on need for food rather than anything, and gives the reasons why basically everyone left could need it.  This ends up being a pretext to take Ben, which I don’t fault too much.  Decent ally, need to keep him close.  But then, rather than make a decision, she asks Q and Liz to do rock, paper, scissors.  Q wins, and so gets to go.  Frankly, this is a flat-out TERRIBLE choice.  Q has no options, and he just ate.  It looks bad, and you don’t need to shore up with him.  Liz, on the other hand, very publicly did not go on reward last time, and is someone you do need to make feel comfortable.  Might as well just take her; fewer questions asked.  Plus, making them do rock, paper, scissors makes you look wishy-washy, which is not a good look in a potential ally.  

A couple of asides concerning Liz, though: While I get that she’s hungry, I don’t see “I haven’t pooped in three weeks” as a good argument for eating pizza.  Last I checked, pizza was not a laxative.  Quite the opposite.  The second thing, mean as it is, is that I kind of love that Liz keeps begging for rewards and not getting them.  This is basically Rodney’s “Damn Birthday” 2.0 from “Survivor Worlds Apart”, and I got some good comedy mileage out of that, so happy to see it return.  

Anyways, back at camp, yeah, guess what, people are salty.  Liz in particular says that she’s “Not going to be quiet anymore.”  Because the woman who literally had a loud tantrum last episode has clearly been quiet up until now.  Liz then loses a lot of respect points from me for saying her allergies are due to bottling stuff up in her real life.  Not saying it’s healthy, but I’m pretty sure science says that’s not even remotely how allergies work.  While Charlie seems to waver a bit because Maria’s immune, he’s still quick to hop on the anti-Q train.  Q doesn’t receive all the vitriol, however.  Maria’s decision making, or lack thereof, has also turned several people off.  

One of those people, funnily enough, is Q.  We see him, Ben, and Maria shore up their agreement on reward (with pizza that looks surprisingly appetizing by “Survivor” standards), but Q admits that, while he’s happy Maria brought him, even HE thinks that was a bad move.  As the other group says, he’s still full of Applebee’s from last episode.  He doesn’t exactly need to eat.  Q’s not gonna complain about extra nutrients, though, and why should he?

The kvetching continues once those on reward return to camp.  True to her promise, Liz continues to complain about how she does not like Q, WHILE Q IS LITERALLY RIGHT BEHIND HER!  Seriously, you can’t write this stuff!  

To her credit, Maria does at this point realize her mistake in not taking Liz, and at least talks to her about things.  No word on how much Liz forgives her, but for now, I don’t see this upending the “Vote out Q” plan.  

All this is good for Charlie, who’s now even more firmly in favor of getting out Q, which compared to Venus (the other group’s plan), is probably the smart move.  Look, Charlie is right that he probably needs to strike out from Maria at some point, or at least lower her numbers.  Without an idol, this is basically his last chance to do it.  Q is not a number for you, and there’s many more people you can beat at the end aside from him!  Venus’ idol is about the only reason to consider taking her out, and even then, it seems more useful as a tool for you than a thing to be flushed.  

Speaking of Venus’ idol, Venus tells us she’s not going to play it tonight, since everyone seems so set on Q.  Because that worked out so well for Venus.  And Hunter.  And Jem.  Ok, the latter two didn’t have Q as an alternate target, but the point still stands, you’d think Venus would learn from history!  Still, unlike the former two, she hasn’t gone telling everyone about her idol yet.  And to be fair, she never does.  But she just CAN’T stop herself from coyly hinting about it to Charlie, while saying she’ll tell him after the vote.  Understandably, this makes Charlie incredibly suspicious.  Dammit, Venus, all you had to do was keep your mouth shut for a few extra hours, and you could have been fine.  Was that REALLY so hard?

With this new information, Charlie wavers a bit.  As a counterpoint, however, he worries if keeping Q will tar him with the same brush, and ruin his chances at the end.  As I made clear two paragraphs ago, getting rid of Q is probably the correct move here, but that’s not a reason to do so.  Just keeping around the guy people dislike is not going to affect your chances at the end.  The very fact that you’ve made clear a willingness to get rid of him means something at the end.  As Adam Klein demonstrated on “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”, merely talking about voting out someone earns you credit for doing so, even if you were at best a minor factor when it comes to actually getting the vote out.  

Before we head off to Tribal, a quick shout-out to Charlie’s lack of a poker face when insisting to Maria that he’s 100% on board for voting off Venus.  Maria must really not be paying attention to not see the hesitation in him.  Though even people who look at Charlie read him wrong.  When he informs Kenzie that he and Ben are scared of voting Q, she chalks it up to them being worried about the men losing numbers, which if that is a consideration, we haven’t seen it.  More Venus messing things up than anything, if the vote goes against her.  

Tribal Council tonight tries to live up to the epicness of some of the previous ones, and just fails miserably.  Probst brings out the cushion and food, there’s an argument involving Q, but none of it has the same flare as previous iterations.  Tiffany was just too good, I guess.  

I suppose I should detail that argument a bit, though.  Basically, Venus reads Maria the riot act about not making a decision.  Maria shoots back that she’d like to see Venus in that slot, and understand the pressure.  Venus states that she would have been a lot more decisive.  Point to Venus here.  Maria was pretty wishy-washy in that moment, and for all of Venus’ faults, she is decisive.  

Q, however, takes this as Venus being salty she didn’t go on the reward, and notes that Maria had no obligation to take Venus, since Venus would not have taken her.  Venus denies this, but I have to go with Q here.  Maria DOES have no obligation to take Venus, and given how firmly Venus has been against Maria, I think one can be pretty confident in saying that she wouldn’t have taken her.  About the worst that can be said about Q here is that his point wasn’t really relevant to the argument at hand, but in a vacuum, he is right.  Q then rubs salt in the wound further by saying that Venus is untrustworthy (somewhat fair), and was out of the loop last vote (very fair).  Venus retorts that Q was out on the last three votes, which I have to disagree with.  True, he was left out of the Hunter vote, but the other ones he was aware of, but had no power to influence.  Still a mark against him, but not in the way Venus says.  

Speaking of Venus, as I mentioned at the top of this blog, she goes out here.  Probably the wrong strategic move, but I’m not sorry to see her go.  With the outside possibility that Q isn’t as disliked as presented so far, his character becomes a lot more intriguing, and he does bring the drama by being a perpetual target.  In contrast, Venus’ arc was basically just her having good reads on the game, but never being listened to.  Funny, but it gets old after a bit.  She’s not super-salty about leaving, but even her final words are underwhelming.  She tries to be inspiring towards women, which is a noble goal, but they sound so practiced they come across like a poor man’s version of Nick Stanbury’s final words from “Survivor Exile Island”.  Some people can pull that type of speech off, and some people can’t.  Venus is one of the “cant’s” in this case.  

As a quick aside, Ben cast a stray vote for Kenzie. Probably just to guard against a shot in the dark, which is reasonable strategy. However, my head canon is that Ben went up to the voting booth and just said “I’m voting for Kenzie because she does not rock.”

Sadly, this episode was kind of a letdown from the previous couple.  The drama just felt muted, though that might just be due to how over-the-top the last few have been.  Venus’ boot was predictable with the editing, particularly given this season’s penchant for blindsiding people with idols, and again, it just didn’t reach the heights this season has become known for.  Hopefully this is just a lull building into an epic last two episodes, though!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.