Idol Speculation: “Survivor Kaoh Rong” Episode 6: Bi-Winning

Hoo baby! Five for six excellent episodes, and you could even argue for a clean sweep! Not quite as good as the record of “Survivor Cambodia”, but given that that season was effectively an “All-Star” season, and therefore more likely to have crazy gameplay, that’s quite a record. Seasons that come after seasons with many returnees tend to be seen as, at best, “Not as good.” by the fanbase. Look at “Survivor Vanuatu”, “Survivor Gabon”, and “Survivor Nicaragua” for examples of this. However, while I would not yet go so far as to say that “Survivor Kaoh Rong” is in that echelon yet (currently I’m putting it around the “Survivor Philippines” level of “above average”), it’s still holding its own very well, and is definitely a good season. Much better than how it was advertised pre-season anyway. As you’d expect, this episode keeps that pattern running, with yet another winner. But before we can delve into the awesomeness that is this episode, we must linger a little longer in the awesomeness that was last episode. Yes, after a long absence, it is time once again for…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Yes, I neglected to mention two points last episode, both good ones. One was just a small humorous moment I neglected to acknowledge. Upon entering the immunity challenge, Michele attempts to stop on the Gondol mat, since it was her original tribe, and has to be corrected by Nate. A small, but funny moment. Not a huge loss in the grand scheme of things, but still worth pointing out. More importantly, though, I neglected to compliment the editing team on a nice bit of work last episode. You’ll recall that one of the main mysteries was whether or not Tai would play his idol. Naturally, this needed to be built up, and man did they ever at Tribal Council! They held on Tai for so long, played the dramatic music, and really made it seem like he would play it, making the surprise when he did it all the better! It occurs to me that, second only to the quality of the cast, the quality of the editing may be a major determining factor in the quality of a season. After all, you keep the mystery alive, and the show becomes all the more intriguing. This is just one major example of it, but the editing team overall has given us a very unpredictable season, and it only serves to improve things!

But enough dwelling in the past, let’s talk about how great this episode opener is! Rather than engage in the usual boot-bashing upon returning from Tribal Council, everyone hugs Tai and bonds over their liking of each other. Some may see this as a weakness of this season, but I really like the fact that despite how conniving these people can be, very few seem to take it personally, and all seem to get along very well. They aren’t mean, and it makes things a lot easier to watch, as well as to root for this group of people.

Save, perhaps, for arrogant, flip-flop-y Peter. Yes, now that Tribal Council is over, he thinks “Hey, I’m on the bottom of the old Chan Loh. Perhaps I ought to do something about that!” Why he didn’t do this last episode when it would have been much easier for him to get the numbers is beyond me, but hey, better late than never. He pulls Tai aside under the pretext of further congratulations, and slips in his plan to vote out Joe. Ok, Peter, it’s bad enough that you’re thinking of the correct plan for you literally one day late, but now you’re also targeting the wrong person! Don’t get me wrong, as an Aubry fan, I applaud you not targeting her, but she’s the smarter move. Joe is weaker in general, and seems to have the LEAST power out of anyone in the alliance. If you’re trying to weaken the old Chan Loh, Aubry is clearly the correct choice. You even figure this out later! How can you not see it now! Tai seems to go along with it, and we store that bit of insanity away for later.

Meanwhile, over at Chan Loh, we get what is quickly becoming our standard “Nick talks about how well he plays the game.” confessional, though to his credit, this one is less arrogant than most of his. Basically, he talks about how he pitches himself to the level of the person he’s interacting with to get results, which is fair enough strategy. As an example, he talks about Debbie, and how, since she thinks of herself as the greatest thing since sliced bread, all he has to do is play along with that. Not a bad example, since Debbie does seem to have an ego, but careful there, Nick! As the audience found out the hard way, Debbie is not to be underestimated. For all that ego, she may snake you yet.

For her part, though, Debbie isn’t looking at Nick too closely. At least, not in the right way. Debbie thinks Nick is attractive, which personally I don’t see. Maybe it’s because he comes across as obviously a scuzball in person as he does on screen, but I don’t see it. He’s got a strong chin I suppose, but something about him just looks off. But hey, don’t take my word for it! After all, Debbie knows what good looks are, since she did some modeling in the past. And, right on cue, up comes the Debbie caption, now with “part-time model” listed as an occupation. Once again: Editors. You’re doing it right!

Nick plays into Debbie’s attraction to him, and we find our tree-mail, which indicates that the challenge this time will be something basketball-related. Not being idiots, Chan Loh realizes they’re going up against Scot, and this puts them at a bit of a disadvantage. Nick, however, takes the positive view. He’s going to be the basket-shooter for Chan Loh, and by going up against Scot, the pressure’s off for him. If he loses, no big deal. He was against an NBA player, of course he’d lose. If he WINS, though, it’s a big freaking deal. That’s… actually exactly the right attitude to have. Yeah, I’ve been giving Nick a hard time, but he actually plays really well in this particular segment. Credit where credit is due, he actually hits all the right notes this one time. Don’t worry, though, douchebag Nick is not far off!

We get to the challenge, which is an interesting combination of challenges from “Survivor Micronesia” and “Survivor Cagayan”. One tribe member dives to untie a series of knots to release 30 buoys from the ocean floor. They and three other tribe members must then herd the buoys to shore and place them on shelves. Afterwards, the remaining two tribe members try to shoot those buoys into a basket, first tribe to 10 winning a nice picnic. It is a combination challenge, and I admit the basketball part feels lackluster and unfair, due to Scot’s presence. Then again, since when did “fairness” enter “Survivor”? Besides, they did the same thing on “Survivor Cagayan” with Cliff Robinson, and the buoy herding part is pretty neat. Plus, if you’re going to combine challenges from two seasons, it’s hard to find a better combination than “Survivor Micronesia” and “Survivor Cagayan”.

Julia rejoins the game at this juncture, heading back to Gondol. This does become important a bit later, but for now there’s no reaction, so it’s not important. What IS important is that, once again, this is a very close race between the tribes. After many seasons where, post-swap, one tribe utterly dominates the other, it’s nice to see an even competition at this point. Gondol takes an early lead due to Aubry’s diving skills, and keeps it up the beach. However, Scot proves to not be as good as you’d think, as Nick catches and ultimately surpasses him. Scot eventually gets his mojo back, though, and eventually manages to clinch this tense challenge, becoming Charlie Sheen in the process and yelling out “Winning!” at the end. Ugh! As if we needed to be reminded of THAT bit of unpleasantness!

We join the ever-jubilant Gondol on reward, and it’s NOW that we get to hear from Julia. She’s happy to be going back to the familiar, not too surprisingly, but she’s also not an idiot. With Anna gone, she realizes that she’s probably in trouble. Worse, she’s been out of the loop, with no obvious way in. After all, Tai’s her only original tribemate left, and he wasn’t exactly tight with her. Luckily for her, Peter the Uncertain is there to make it all better! He pulls her out into the water, and informs her of his plan to turn against the old Chan Loh. What’s more, he NOW figures out that, despite his personal feelings towards Joe, Aubry might be the smart one to take out. Julia, for her part, seems happy not to be the only target available, and with Scot seemingly in with Tai, things seem set in motion.

Not that Aubry and Joe are blind, of course. After all, they seem socially more adept than Peter. However, in their security, they seem to be making an error. Often, during the first part of this episode, we see them going off and conversing by themselves, separating from the tribe. Even if you’re in power, this is a big no-no. It separates you socially and strategically from where you need to be, and can easily set a coup in motion, like it seems to be doing now. Seeing Peter converse with a whole bunch of people, Aubry and Joe are suspicious, but for now, Aubry thinks that keeping the numbers is more important, and agrees that Julia needs to leave. Things are not looking good for the pair.

As he predicted, Nick is hailed as a hero back at Chan Loh, despite his not winning the challenge. He came close against the pro NBA player, and that’s enough. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one at fault. Michele struggled on the knots, and that crucial bit of time might have been the learning curve Nick needed. On top of that, while Nick was on the bottom of the old Gondol, and thus is relatively unaffected by the loss of Anna, Michele was closely allied with her, so her exit means Michele just lost a lot of stock in the game. Naturally, this combination of events puts Michele in a bit of a funk, and at first it seems like that might be her undoing. She goes out into the water and sulks for a bit. Debbie sees this, and makes a comment about making sure she doesn’t kill herself. WHOA! Dick move there, Debbie! That’s really not the sort of thing you joke about! Fortunately, Michele pulls herself together, and starts playing this game strategically. Seemingly abandoning the whole “Old Gondol” thing, she talks to Debbie about not liking Nick, and wanting to stick together. Debbie agrees, noting that she wants a woman to win this thing. She’s been saying this a lot, and it actually makes sense. Apart from the women overall being much better players than the men this time around, it’s a way of feeling out potential alliance mates, and even setting up a pseudo-alliance, without actually betraying anybody. After all, if she gets caught, she didn’t technically make any promises.

But enough of the interesting stuff! Are you ready for DOUCHEBAG NICK! Yes, introducing Douchebag Nick is the lovely and talented Michele Fitzgerald. She’s going up to him like an equal, offering him the possibility of sticking with the old Chan Loh. Ah, but here’s a trademark move of Douchebag Nick: Being dismissive of others! Yes, Douchebag Nick is not considering her opinion at all! Not even a little! He’s flat-out telling her that they’re going with the old To Tang! Granted, that’s the smart move at this point, since the old Chan Loh is much more united, but that’s not the way you win friends and influence people, Douchebag Nick! Yep, there’s Michele making a face at it. Seems like she’ll go along with it for now, but she doesn’t really need Nick at this point, and might turn on him. Now, THERE’s an interesting storyline developing! After all, while all sides at the new Chan Loh are brokering for each other, Debbie’s really the only one going for both the women and the men on each side. Could that mean the difference down the line? Only time will tell.

You may have noticed that the promised blow-up of Joe at Peter seen the last “Next time on…” preview hasn’t been seen yet. Well, wait not longer! After Peter goes off to obviously talk with yet ANOTHER person outside the old Chan Loh, Joe loses it. We’ve seen that Peter has a problem with Joe, so Joe suspects that Peter is up to something. Thus, Joe goes to have a conversation to try and figure out if Peter’s flipping or not. This is actually a good idea. If Peter’s not going to be loyal, than it’s worth considering getting him out. What’s NOT a good idea is how Joe goes about it. Namely, he gets very angry at Peter, becomes very confrontational, and ultimately forms a pretty big rift between the two. Granted, this method does get the results desired, since it becomes clear from Peter’s waffling on the question that he’s disloyal, but now you’ve lost some social points, and Peter knows you’re on to him. Better to go about these things subtly, Joe.

Anyway, we move on to our challenge, which once again seems set up to favor Scot, this time because of an emphasis on the height department. It’s an interesting take on your standard obstacle course. Tribes run over a spinning log before getting hurled up onto a net ramp. Then, they must untie poles to knock blocks off an overhead net (somewhat similar to “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, before stacking said blocks on a tiny platform, like on “Survivor Samoa”. First tribe to have all blocks stacked and standing free for three seconds wins immunity, which looks much less cool without its base. Not as good as the reward challenge, and combining elements from “Survivor Blood vs. Water” and “Survivor Samoa” is not as good as the aforementioned “Survivor Micronesia” and “Survivor Cagayan”. However, it’s original enough, and is once again very tense. What ultimately makes me pass it, though, is that the shade of blue they used brings back memories of “Survivor Guatemala”, and I really like “Survivor Guatemala”.

Despite having gained a lead on the block-pushing section, Peter’s insane “Put the small blocks on first!” idea ultimately leads to a narrow loss for Gondol. Fortunately, this is a situation where both tribes had good strategizing scenes, so it came as a surprise, and doesn’t feel disappointing. As if Peter’s constant flip-flopping wasn’t bad enough, after an Aubry-incited reconciliation from Joe, Peter now thinks that sticking with the old Chan Loh is a good idea. WHY? Peter, they’re not going to let you get too far in this game! Flip now while you have the chance! Let there be no firm alliances come the merge so you can have the swing vote! Be sensible! But no, Peter tells Scot what the deal is, and so Scot confers with Julia and Tai. Like they should have done LAST episode with Anna, the three try to figure out a way to get Peter off, since he’s annoying everyone, and is therefore likely to be wanted out by the other Chan Loh. Despite their earlier confrontation, Joe is ruled out due to being to loyal. That leaves Aubry. Since Peter targeted Aubry with Julia, they think she might be their swing vote. Accordingly, Tai and Julia take a walk with Aubry, and fill her in. Aubry takes the information to heart, which makes everyone else believe that she won’t go for it, and that Julia’s gone. Privately, Aubry’s considering it, since Peter’s targeting her makes him more of a threat. Joe, however, is having none of it, saying he’s tired of this wishy-washy-ness. Um, Joe? Correct me if I’m wrong, but WHO was it who, not two commercial breaks ago, was wanting Peter out with every fiber of their being? Oh, that’s right, YOU! I really don’t get where he’s coming from. He’s had beef with Peter, but it’s not ok when Aubry does? Seems a bit hypocritical there, buddy.

So of course, heading off to Tribal Council, the question is whether or not Aubry will flip, and whether it’s a smart move. Time will tell on both. While I’d normally give my two cents on what the smart move is here, I’m going to save it for the end of the blog, because it’s a bit complicated.

While some may sing it’s praises, I found Tribal Council tonight to be a pretty standard affair, vote results notwithstanding. Some would argue this, since we got last minute open strategy talk at Tribal Council, but that seems to have become par for the course on “Survivor” at this point. Still, it’s always pretty interesting to watch in and of itself, and it’s not as though this Tribal Council was BAD. Really, it’s more that, save the results, we didn’t really have a lot of stand-out moments.

But oh, those results! Of course, the big question mark here was Aubry, especially since Scot, Julia, and Tai made it clear they were voting for Peter. Thus, it was a bit odd to see that Aubry had written down Julia. Since Joe made it clear he wasn’t flipping, and Peter can’t vote for himself, that means it’s a tie, right? Well no. Peter goes home, good riddance to him, but how do you explain that Aubry vote? Why, she changed her mind in the booth, of course! The last vote read has “Julia” crossed out, and “Peter”, written under it, thus changing the vote. Excellent fake-out engineered by Aubry and the editing team! Like I said, the editing this season has been above-average, and I can’t sing its praises enough. As to Peter’s ouster, I’m not sorry to see him go. The guy was arrogant and not really that smart. Certainly Julia showed herself to be better than him this evening, doing a very good job of keeping her head up and helping herself out of a tough situation. On top of that, we’d really already seen how this story-arc was going, so it was nice to get that concluded and not have it hanging over our heads going into the merge. And Peter, don’t worry. It wasn’t JUST your challenge performance that got you the axe. It was your arrogance and horrible strategic play as well.

But enough chit-chat! I’m sure you want to know whether Aubry’s flip was the right move! That’s a bit of a complicated question for me. You see, the answer is yes… but with a caveat. the answer is yes, KNOWING WHAT WE, AS THE AUDIENCE, KNOW. We know that next episode is the merge, and that changes everything. Once the merge hits, Peter becomes much more of a threat, by showing that you aren’t a united front, and being a swing vote. The old Gondol is already fractured, so getting out one more of them won’t make much of a difference. Plus, in an odd way, by lowering your numbers, you make yourself a more attractive prospect for an alliance come the merge, since your numbers wouldn’t be so dominating. The argument could be made that this pisses off Joe, but given that Aubry evidently gave him some warning, and that Peter was a threat whom Joe didn’t like, I doubt he’ll be too put out over the whole thing. If you know the merge is coming, then Peter is the biggest threat to your alliance, and therefore it is a good idea to get him out. But that’s the thing: Aubry DOESN’T know the merge is coming. She predicted correctly, I’ll grant you, but my philosophy with strategy is always go with what you know. Since the date of the merge is technically unpredictable, it’s smarter to go with what you know, and what you know is that if you vote out Peter, you’re down in numbers on the new Gondol. you might outlast Joe, but since he’s in your alliance, you don’t want him gone either. From Aubry’s perspective, probably would’ve been smarter to stick with voting out Julia. That said, she predicted correctly, and ultimately I think this move works to the benefit of her and her alliance. There’s just no way she could have known it.

Man alive, what an episode! Excellent strategy all around, good misdirection, hilarious editing, and a deserving boot! For once, the merge has its work cut out for it!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.