Well, after several delays, I can FINALLY blog about this episode! And it was definitely a good one! Not as great as some of the others, but unlike last week, stuff of importance actually HAPPENED! Let’s see what it was.
Unsurprisingly, we start off with Tai being stunned by the blindside of Jason from the previous episode. Somewhat surprisingly, it’s JOE who goes and comforts Tai, pointing out that it was just the will of the group. You’d think, with how hard she was working him, that it’d be Aubry who was trying her damnedest to get Tai back on the good side, but no, we need SOMETHING for Joe to do. Tai, while understanding of the situation, is hurt that he wasn’t let in on the plan. He brings up a good point, actually. If Jason would have gone home either way, why NOT let Tai know what was going on? It saves the trouble of a disgruntled alliance member later, and doesn’t negatively impact your plans in any way.
So, at the moment, Tai is handling himself well. Where he loses me is when he gets back on the “Michele isn’t part of the alliance.” track. Michele mentions being hurt by those comments at the past Tribal Council (understandably so), but Tai could have just apologized and let it drop. Instead, he continues to try and justify himself, in so doing only widening the gap between himself and Michele.
But Michele is not the only person out on Tai at this point! No, since Tai was the most hurt by Aubry not voting for Michele, she’s the one he goes to for comfort. Now, this is a great opportunity for Aubry to mend the bridge with Tai, bring a strong ally back into the fold, and cement her position as the power player of Dara. Naturally, being the excellent strategist she is, she… gets wishy-washy with Tai and just tries to justify herself, which Tai isn’t buying. I get wanting to distance herself from Tai, but doing so so blatantly makes him more likely to move against her. Granted, it may soften the blow if she plans to vote him off, but he’d still be offended anyway. May as well lull him into a false sense of security to keep him from going off on his own and betraying you. He’s not going to be significantly more butthurt anyway.
We head to our one challenge of the episode (which should tell you something about how the episode goes), which is a decent one, all things considered. Everyone runs up a jungle path to a set of ladder rungs with bags of sandbags tied to them. One at a time, you untie said sandbags, and bring them back to the start, where you try and throw them into five separate holes. The first person with a sandbag in each hole wins a massage night and feast. Pretty good reward for this late in the game, and a simple, but effective, challenge. What I particularly like is the possibility that someone may not need to get all the bags to win. It’s just the first person to make the five holes wins. With more sandbags than you need, and no collecting old bags until everyone’s out, it’s very possible for someone to win without getting all their bags. It doesn’t happen that way, but it’s still an interesting idea.
Our early frontrunners seems to be Cydney and Aubry (Michele surprisingly has a pretty poor performance this challenge), with Aubry pulling into a 4-bag lead before running out of sandbags. Since everyone must throw before a reset, though, we have to wait as Joe slowly makes his way back for the remaining bags. The dramatic music tells us we’ve got an underdog victory on our hands, though, and with his last two sandbags, Joe manages to win a reward challenge. For all the hard time I’ve given him, and will continue to give him, this is a pretty cool moment to see, and a high point for Joe. Strategically, he’s still made no impact beyond being a solid Debbie/Aubry number, but still, this is a good moment for him, and fun to watch.
Naturally, Joe gets to take someone along on his reward, and no surprise, he picks Aubry. Joe is then given the option to take a SECOND person on the reward, but his intellectual reserves are exhausted by that Aubry decision, so Aubry chooses Cydney, which is smart. An argument COULD be made for Tai, but it’s pretty clear that Aubry is hitching herself to the Cydney train, so it’s good to strengthen that bond if you can.
But the first order of business on any reward is food, and Joe is certainly living it up. There are steak kebabs, and despite Joe not being a major steak person, he eats about eight of the damn things. Sydney gives us a double dose of “Survivor” references here, giving Dawn’s warning about reward food from “Survivor Caramoan”, combined with Stephen Fishbach’s “gastro-intestinal distress” from “Survivor Cambodia”. If you don’t think this is prophetic, then you don’t know how this show works.
We do eventually get to the alliance building portion of the reward, and it starts off about as typical as you’d expect, with one side (Aubry) talking about wanting to go to the end, and the other (Cydney) assenting to this, with a nice confessional from the latter about liking the idea, but keeping their options open. I roll my eyes a little bit at Cydney saying that she’s a big threat to win this, since out of everyone left at the end of this episode, I’d say she has the LEAST chance of winning at Final Tribal Council. Still, can’t fault her wanting to downplay how big of a threat she is, and her low chances of winning are due more to the players left than herself overall.
Oh, but this is not a standard strategy talk, because Joe actually opens his mouth! And we’re reminded once again of why Joe SHOULDN’T be opening his mouth for the sake of his alliance. For whatever reason, he seems to see Aubry as the major threat to flip against the threesome, and talks about how handily she can beat himself and Cydney in the finals. I’ll give Joe credit, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more convincing argument… of why CYDNEY should go AGAINST the alliance! Seriously, man, your closest ally and you’re throwing her under the bus like this? Not intentionally, I know, but the effect is the same. If Cydney wasn’t considering flipping, she surely is now.
Aubry, being the subject of this assassination, is quick to comment on this in confessional. Naturally, her conclusion from Joe’s “Aubry will win.” bit is that… Cydney’s a threat. What? Look, I’m not saying Cydney is non-threatening, but compared to Michele or even Tai, she’s low on the totem pole in that regard, particularly given that she seems to be your main strategy buddy. And, more to the point, HOW DOES JOE TALKING ABOUT YOU BEING A THREAT MEAN THAT CYDNEY’S A THREAT? Seriously, did we just miss a confessional here? I have no idea how one of these things follows from the other. A non-sequitur if ever there was one. On the plus side, Aubry’s SOLUTION to the perceived threat of Cydney is to bring Tai back into the fold. The right conclusion for the wrong reasons.
Bringing Tai back into the fold may be tougher than she thinks, though. With how Tai was insulting Michele all through the past two episodes, you’d think things would be really awkward with the two of them back at camp. And it is, at least at first. Eventually, Michele and Tai go out to the water to have a talk, where the insulting of Michele continues with Tai calling her “Closed off” Surely, no strategy can come from this! Michele returns in kind, pointing out that Tai kind of picks who he wants to work with, and ignores the rest, which Tai admits may be true about him. The pair bond a little closer, and it’s sweet to see. Michele even gets a Tai Massage, making Mark the Chicken jealous. It’s a cute scene, but unlike most of last episode, it has some purpose. With the two now on better speaking terms, and each correctly concluding that they’re on the bottom of the totem pole, Tai proposes potentially using his idol to blindside someone, probably Aubry due to feeling betrayed by her.
Day 35 has Tai being a bit emotional, which is quite understandable for that time in the game. Doing pretty much ANYTHING 35 days straight is tough, and “Survivor” is no picnic, to use the cliche. But there is no resting for top strategists like Aubry. Pretty much right away, she gets to work on bringing Tai back to her side, using the same sorts of arguments she used before, mixing the emotion of the game, and asking about what he wants, with a proposed play (final 3 with herself and Joe). This is something she should have started doing EARLIER, but better late than never, I suppose. It certainly seems to work for Tai, who breaks down crying on Aubry’s shoulder, and then agrees to work with the pair. Perhaps it’s the emotions of this time in the game, perhaps Aubry’s really just that good at persuading Tai, but whatever the reason, he comes back REALLY easily.
But, of course, nothing on “Survivor” is quite that easy. Unless this was “Survivor Redemption Island”, but thankfully, this is far away from that season. No, as Aubry and Tai happily walk back from the well, Cydney gets suspicious that they’ve been talking “alliance”, which naturally supplants her. I personally didn’t see anything to indicate it was anything other than a water run, so I’ll chalk that up to Cydney’s observation skills. Whatever else I say about her, I will give her credit that she’s able to read situations with little info with spooky accuracy, and that’s quite an asset on “Survivor”. In this case, Cydney uses that information to reaffirm her bond with Michele. Once again, Cydney is hedging her bets, not being totally firm on who she’s with in her confessionals, but keeping her options open in case Aubry does something screwy. Frankly, that’s how Cydney should be playing, and she’s doing it quite well. Not much else to say.
The pair try to pick a person to target, but that quickly becomes irrelevant. As Cydney predicted, Joe is suffering ill effects from eating all that beef on reward. He’s going the route of Bruce Kanegai (“Survivor Exile Island”), wherein nothing is moving in his bowels. He even goes one step further than Bruce, and has his blockage also extend to the urinary tract. You can tell that the poor guy is toughing it out through a lot of pain, and puts up with it for about as long as he possibly can. Medical does eventually come out, and we get a hope spot when they decide to start him on medication rather than pull him from the game. When they come back later in the evening, though, everyone knows it’s over. The death knell of Jeff Probst coming to camp has sounded. Sure enough, no one, not even Joe, is surprised at the verdict of his needing to leave the game. The guy just says he’s proud of how far he made it at his age, and frankly, it’s hard to get too mad at him. He had a real moment in the sun with that reward challenge, and he’s just so upbeat about the exit that you have to like him at least a little. Still, not too sorry to see him go. Like it’s spiritual ancestor “Survivor Cagayan”, this season has a real strength in that most people came to play, and for good or for ill, they did. Also like “Survivor Cagayan”, though, there were exceptions to this rule, and Joe was one of those. You can’t really dislike the guy, but you can’t say her really contributed to the game. If someone had to go before the final episode, he’s probably the best choice.
And what a final four we’re left with! I would say this is the most universally likable and, for want of a better term, “worthy of winning” final four we’ve had since “Survivor Philippines”, and that’s saying something! With Joe gone, everyone left has at least a couple of likable qualities and reasons why they could logically be crowned the winner! It’s going to be hard to have a “bad” outcome to the season. Plus, with Joe gone, we now ostensibly have two groups of two (Michele and Cydney vs. Tai and Aubry), which is always tough, but there’s play within those groups. The smart money probably says that Tai flips back with Michele and Cydney, given what we saw this episode, leaving Aubry to go at this next Tribal Council. I wouldn’t count Aubry out yet, though. As she noted, this is an exact parallel to how Neal left (minus the idol), and we see how THAT turned out for her. Things aren’t looking good for my favorite player, but I’m not counting her out just yet!
Speaking of counting, though, it’s time to rank the players based on how likely they are to win at Final Tribal Council, a tradition here at “Idol Speculation”.
1. Aubry: Perhaps a controversial call, but I think if Aubry makes the end, she wins. She’s played a really visible game, but a really smart one, having come back from several strategic deficits, and has managed to avoid taking the negative blame for most of her moves. Hell, even her enemies like her! Remember Jason and Scot talking about how worthy a competitor she was? And these are people she was responsible for voting out! You couldn’t wish for better jurors! Also, I have a hard time thinking of people who WOULDN’T vote for Aubry, save perhaps Debbie and Julia, and I only say those because I watch the “Ponderosa” videos. Now, if this list were factoring in likelihood to make it to the Final Tribal Council, Aubry would fall much, much lower than she is. But if you ask me who has the best case at Final Tribal Council, it’d be her.
2. Michele: Were I to factor in likelihood to make it to the end, Michele would top this list hands down. Like Aubry, Michele really has no enemies on the jury, which is a good start. On top of this, Michele has played a very strong game, and as we’ve seen, is quite the debater at Tribal Council, making her a serious contender. I say that she’s more likely to make it to the end, only because her game has been played more behind proverbial closed doors, meaning she’s less likely to be seen as a threat, and thereby eliminated. However, it’s that very lack of visibility that makes it harder for her to beat Aubry in the end. I have no doubt it’s possible, but Aubry’s moves have been more public, and therefore easier to see. Michele could very easily win this game, though.
3. Tai: This was a tough call for me, deciding who to put higher: Tai or Cydney. Both have a number of strategic moves under their belt, and both have had a measure of power, but both has also taken a lot of the negative flak for their moves, which could put them in a bad spot depending on who they go up against. I put Tai slightly above Cydney only because he has more of an underdog story going for him. If he pulls out the “Vietnam refugee” storyline again, and points out how much he doesn’t resemble the prototypical “Survivor” contestant, he might just snag a win.
4. Cydney: As I say, this is a tough call, and Cydney is by no means out of the running. She’s made a number of visible power plays, and her observational abilities alone might be worthy of a win. But, unlike some others, her moves could be seen as detrimental to her, particularly the decision to flip on Nick, Jason, and Scot. She arguably put herself in a worse position, and probably bears the brunt of ill-will from the jury. Again, she’s by no means a goat, and she could very well surprise me, but I feel like out of everyone here, Cydney is the weakest link.
And there you have it! Am I the oracle of Kaoh Rong, or just some guy on the internet talking out of his ass? This Wednesday will tell, and you’ll know well before me! As I mentioned in my last blog, I have a meeting this week that bleeds into the “Survivor” finale (curse it not being on Sunday anymore), so I will have to wait. The gap should not be this long this time, and I thank you for your patience with me. Here’s to a great finale for a great season!
-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.
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