So, yeah. The season hasn’t even started, and I’ve already made a grievous error. Shaping up to be a wonderful run, huh guys?
As the title of this blog would indicate, this is the 500th episode of “Survivor”, and thereby worth immortalizing, right? Definitely a milestone worth acknowledging. I just don’t see why it has to be acknowledged with a returnee season. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a BAD idea. After all, “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” was done to honor the 10th anniversary of the show, and that turned out well in the long run. But “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” had something of a break between it and the last returnee season. However important the 500th episode might be, it’s still just too soon for a twist like this.
Not that we shouldn’t acknowledge the 500th episode, even if it was an all-newbie season. Here’s an idea: Rather than do the “scramble for supplies off the boat” start, have us begin on a reward challenge. The reward? A previous contestant, Rupert or Ozzy or somebody, lives at your camp for three days, and helps you get your camp life off to a humongous start. Probably have them bring some extra supplies with them as well, to sweeten the deal. BAM. A twist that we’ve never seen before (on the US version of the show at least), that both honors the show’s past, but doesn’t need to dominate the whole season. Oh, and have Probst acknowledge it in the season intro, of course.
This segways nicely into our Probst intro for the season, which for my money is good for how understated it is. It acknowledges seasons past, with the flashing of the logos and all, but doesn’t dwell on it too much, and while it has the usual superlatives, it doesn’t go too overboard with them. Hell, we pretty much skip over most of the cast bragging about themselves. And the ones we do get? Pretty appropriate. Tony and Sandra are both former winners, and therefore have bragging rights, and Malcolm and Cirie are both fan-favorite players who have many good quips in them. The only ones that ARGUABLY don’t make sense are Debbie and Brad. In the case of the former: she’s a quote machine, of COURSE you had to cut to her. As to the latter… Well, the show can be forgiven showing off one creator’s pet.
After our lack of a theme song (a real shame, as I was fond of the little snippet we heard at the beginning), we get Probst introducing the contestants to the season, once again trying to push on us that people like Sierra made game-changing moves, which I don’t think even Sierra buys. Probst also builds up another tribute to the show’s history, pointing out that they’re starting out the same way as “Survivor Borneo”. Yes, it’s DEFINITELY like “Survivor Borneo”. And “Survivor Cook Islands”. And “Survivor Philippines”. And “Survivor Cambodia”. And “Survivor Kaoh Rong”. If we get rid of the ship part of it, we can add “Survivor Tocantins”, “Survivor One World”, and “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X” to the mix. My point here, Probst, is that it’s not as unique as you like to think. Now, this is always a fun way to start the show, and I get them reusing it a lot. But for a season trying to do something new and different, I find it VERY hypocritical that we’re now getting this start for the FOURTH SEASON IN A ROW! Come up with something different!
Probst does try to change things up by noting a single tool kit up for grabs for one tribe. Two people race out, and the first to untie a series of knots gets it for their tribe. Not bad. Done already for greater stakes (rice>tools) on “Survivor Cambodia”, but not bad nonetheless. This leads to one of our two notable moments during this, when Ozzy, ever the hero, dives right in to go for the toolbox. Probst comments derisively on how no one on Mana tribe (the superior tribe in terms of whom I like, if not physical ability) even bothers to go after it, but as Hali and Jeff Varner point out, there’s really no point. This sort of contest is built for Ozzy. Only a complete moron would try to catch him up. Naturally, Caleb will attempt this in about a minute. Better to save one extra person on the ship to get more stuff for your tribe, rather than waste them on a swimming contest with Ozzy.
Our other moment comes courtesy of “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”, when our beloved “Game Changer” Andrea picks up a crate of supplies, revealing an envelope labeled “Secret Advantage”. And just leaves it there. In fairness, I get how in the heat of them moment, such things could be easily overlooked, but as someone who is an avowed “Not Andrea” fan, I’ll take any excuse I can get to point out inadequacies in her game, however understandable. No, Sierra ends up picking it up, and frankly it’ll have about as much impact for her as it would for Andrea.
In the end, thanks to some fancy stealing, Nuku comes away with a bounty. After a particularly gorgeous nature shot, we cut to Mana finding their camp, where our characters start charactering right away. Michaela proves that she still has that confessional flare that we all love, talking about needing to suck up to these all-stars, and showing us her “suck up face”, which to me looks more like a pouty face, but then what do I know? Not to be outdone in the character department, Tony announces (I would say “loudly announces”, but with Tony, the “loudly” would be redundant) that he’s off to look for the idol. Give him points for flare. Everyone points out how this obviously paints a target on Tony’s back, since, you know, nobody was thinking him ALREADY, and they send Caleb and Sandra after him. This actually works out well for Tony, as he evidently had no intention of idol-hunting, and was just screwing with people. Plus, Sandra and Caleb are arguably the two people on his tribe most likely to want to work with him. Sandra, as she states, needs another winner along as a meat shield, and Caleb wants to keep Tony for his strength.
We’ll be hearing the “Tony is strong, and we need him.” argument a lot tonight, so let me just get the question going through my mind out of the way: How is Tony strong? Granted, he’s no weakling. He was on the “Brawn” tribe of “Survivor Cagayan”, and they did very well, but for an individual, it’s the individual challenges that really show one’s stuff, and Tony did not deliver. He was beaten in overall challenges by Spencer Bledsoe, a man so skinny you could turn him sideways and he’d be invisible. And in terms of individual challenge wins, he’s tied with Kass. KASS! I love and adore Kass, but a challenge beast she ain’t, and if you’re on the same level as her, no way you qualify as a challenge beast.
Harmony seems to set in at Nuku, as everyone builds their shelter all happy and cheerful. But slowly, people start to splinter off from the group. Sierra is first, naturally wanting to see what her mystery advantage is. Got to admit, this is a real head scratcher! I mean, “Survivor” is known for it’s creativity and ingenuity with it’s twists, so it could be absolutely… Yeah, it’s the Legacy Advantage again. Predictable, but I’ll give credit where credit is due, they change it up slightly. Now, rather than just activating at the Final Six, it can be used either at the Final Six or Final 13, which gives a bit more strategy in how it’s played. Also, it can now be willed to people on the opposite tribe, which further adds dimensions. They’ve changed it up enough that I’m ok with it, but as I said last season, I don’t want this to become a regular thing.
Sarah takes a minute to talk about what a social threat she is, and here I have to roll my eyes. I know people can change their ways in this game, but I find it hard to believe that the woman who went power-mad, declared herself the “President”, and so offended an ally that she made an arguably disadvantageous flip could be called good at the social game.
Ozzy also splits off from the group, unsurprisingly corralling people to get Cirie voted off. Ozzy claims it’s due to physical weakness in challenges, and I’m sure that’s a factor, but we all know the real reason is that Ozzy just wants revenge for “Survivor Micronesia”. He can swear up and down all he wants that he doesn’t hold a grudge, but we can tell he holds a grudge. The others go along with it because, like Sandra, Cirie is dangerous if you let her get very far. It’s not a bad strategy, it’s just not coming from the place Ozzy says it is.
After commercial, it’s Nuku time once again, beating the same drum, but with different players. Cirie is no stranger to reading people, and she senses something off about Ozzy. She goes over to assure herself that everything’s good between them, and Ozzy, to his credit, does a good acting job, saying that it was eight years ago, and therefore no longer a factor. We then immediately cut to Ozzy talking with JT and Tai about how Cirie needs to go. JT, also not being a huge fan of Cirie, agrees at once. Tai gives the impression of this as well, but admits in confessional that he likes Cirie, and doesn’t want to see her go. Showing that his choice in allies has gotten no smarter since “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, Tai goes to Cirie and warns her that all is not good with Ozzy, and hints heavily in silence that he’s gunning for her. This sets Cirie on edge, and we see her start to put some feelers out about possible allies.
Back at Mana, Tony’s antics continue, as he gets to work on the construction of his “spy bunker”, a hole being dug by the water well. This was heavily advertised pre-season, and even then, it seemed ludicrous to me. I mean, Tony’s not a small guy, and digging a hole, especially without a shovel, is harder than it seems. Sure enough, Tony gets caught out by Troyzan, leading to more obvious talk about how Tony needs to be the first to go. Ciera in particular is pushing it hard, lobbying for a 4-4 split between Tony and Caleb, his protege. Everyone readily agrees to this, but Malcolm admits in confessional that Ciera is playing a bit too hard, and if all else fails, she may need to go.
Before we get to our challenge, let me say that I LOVE the misdirection here. Not in terms of who the targets are; those have been firmly established. No, once again, “Survivor” does an excellent job of balancing out the strategy on both sides. Granted, we’ve had a bit more strategy talk with Mana, but Nuke has the Cirie/Ozzy feud to work with, and since both tribes were shown an equal amount, there’s extra excitement about who will come out on top, particularly as this challenge ends up being close.
Good thing, too, because the challenge itself is BORING! It’s a rehash of a challenge, and not a particularly epic one at that. Allow me to describe this challenge as I have before: 7 tribe members will go over a water obstacle course to untie a boat containing a box of puzzle pieces. They will then paddle the boat to shore, bring up the box of puzzle pieces, and leave the remaining 3 tribe members to solve an admittedly pretty complicated ship’s wheel puzzle, which must then be spun to raise a flag. First tribe with the flag raised wins immunity and flint.
Yes, this is an exact copy of what I wrote about this challenge (save for upping the number of tribe members) when it was first run on “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. It’s exactly the same thing, with the only change being that the boat part comes at the beginning, rather than the end, which is hardly a substantial change. I understand that returnee seasons usually reuse challenges, but again, we JUST saw this sort of thing on “Survivor Cambodia”, and there they tended to reuse the most epic of challenges, particularly for the first one. This, while ok overall, does not fit that category.
We get the reveal of our immunity idol. Taking a twist from “Scooby-Doo”, we reveal that our immunity idol for the season is Captain Cuttler. Talking about aesthetics for a second, I must admit that while I wasn’t a huge fan of this season’s look when first revealed, it’s grown on me. We’ve had “shipwreck” seasons before, but this one ages things up a bit, looking for like an early 20th century shipwreck than a late 18th century shipwreck. I was initially skeptical about doing such a, for want of a better term, “modern” theme on the show, but for whatever reason, the art department did a good enough job that I’m ok with it.
Probst also reveals the head-spinning twist that revotes will no longer be a “thing”. Now, in the event of a split-vote tie, we will jump straight to the “unanimous decision or rock draw” phase of a tiebreaker. Like the look of this season, I was initially skeptical, but this grew on me as well, though the twist took less time to look good than the aesthetic did. Sure, we’ve had times where the revote did actually change someone’s mind (notably Cochran on “Survivor South Pacific”), but by and large, this phase is just a formality, and what it DID allow to happen was that a hidden immunity idol could be flushed with no risk to the majority. Basically, it forced the creation of supermajorities. The reason I’m ok with taking that away is that I like coming up with new and different ways to solve problems. One of the reasons I’m a fan of the hidden immunity idol is that there’s a number of ways around it, and a number of ways to undo those ways around it. My point is, while helpful, it’s not a guarantee of anything. That said, there’s not a lot to be done about a supermajority, so I can understand having a disincentive towards them. I do wish that the way around supermajorities had come from the game itself, rather than a rule by the showrunners, but there’s also a limit to how much you can influence math, so I’m willing to take it in stride.
As I say, this challenge is a close one. The tribes start off relatively even. Nuku gains a lead, because Ozzy, and then loses it on opening a lockbox, then gains it again when Jeff Varner has trouble with HIS lock box, then loses it again when Sandra and Ciera do well on the puzzle. As an aside, the best part of this challenge? CLEARLY Varner channelling the spirit of Jonathan Penner (“Survivor Cook Islands”), and bitching at Probst when Probst claims he’s panicking. I knew there was a reason I wasn’t too upset.
In the end, Nuku takes home Captain Cuttler, and Mana is left to decide who will get the “honor” of going home first on a season such as this. Since Ciera stated previously that it would be horrible to be the first one to go home on a season called “Game Changers”, naturally it will be her, but let’s see how this plays out.
Tony, recognizing that he’s in trouble, pulls together a bunch of people to find out what’s going on. Malcolm, again wanting to keep “strength” around, points out that Ciera is really the only one throwing names out, emphasizing my point about her not yet being over the trauma of “Survivor Cambodia” and trying to get people to play too hard, too fast. When Ciera starts to come up the path towards out group, Tony needs a quick name to throw out. Now, the SMART thing to do would be to have others confide in Ciera privately that Tony is the target, as Ciera wanted him out anyway, and it offends no one. But no, Tony uses Michaela as bait, since she’s an unknown quantity.
Michaela takes it well. Now you know why Fiji has one less island than it used to.
Actually, to Michaela’s credit, she manages to keep relatively cool, mostly limiting her blowing up to confessionals and aside glances at a few choice allies. Granted, people can still tell that she’s upset, but she doesn’t wear her heart QUITE as openly as she did last season.
Sandra unsurprisingly informs us that Michaela’s attitude has now ACTUALLY put her on the chopping block, but I don’t buy it for a minute. Tony versus Ciera, I could understand. There’s solid reasons for getting rid of both of them. But Michaela vs. Ciera? It’s obvious who’s more threatening on a strategy level, and who’s less capable physically. Not really a contest here, fellas.
At least we get a cool-looking Tribal Council. It’s also shipwreck-themed, so basically the Tribal Council from “Survivor Cook Islands” aged up a century or two. I think it’s the lighthouse voting booth that really sells it. That’s a creative idea.
I can’t say Tribal Council is uninteresting, but I can’t say that anything great stands out about it either, save for Malcolm’s attempt to speak llama. Yeah, you knew you couldn’t have a season with Tony without that reference. Ciera is sent packing in a 9-1 vote, which she handles with grace. Ultimately, I’m not all that sorry to see her go. As I’ve said in my “Cast Assessment” blog, I have more respect for Ciera than some in the fan community, but she played too hard, too fast, we got pretty much what we expected to get, and so didn’t need anything more from her, and was the logical choice out of these two. Between her and Tony? It would have to be Tony. For all that Ciera is an obvious player, she plays logically. Tony is just too manic and crazy a player to be kept around. That being said, I DO understand why they didn’t want to target Tony. There was talk beforehand of Tony possibly having an idol, and with the majority only being flimsy at this point, combined with the revelation that splitting votes is riskier this season, I could see people wanting to play it safe, especially for the first vote.
I am, however, upset that we didn’t get to hear Ciera’s final words. First out or not, she was a part of the season, and deserves respect for that alone.
Things are surprisingly calm at Mana the next day, which naturally drives Tony up the wall. Forget Judd Sergeant (“Survivor Guatemala”), THIS is the guy who has “AYE-DEE-DEE!” Or, more accurately, ADHD. Fortunately for Tony, Aubry soon joins him at the water well, and they discuss strategy. Together they channel the spirit of Jeremy Collins (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”), and resurrect the meat shield strategy. Not bad for either of them. Tony is a memorable winner, making him a target, and Aubry played a fantastic game on the last season seen before the filming of this one, so both need that protection of a big target. Caleb, while not a big target, is brought on for his strength and loyalty, with Aubry pulling in Malcolm and Tony bringing in Sandra as fourth and fifth, since both are big targets for playing well and winning twice, respectively. All agree to the plan separately, and for now, the alliance seems stable.
Old habits die hard at Nuku, as Tai once again cares for the chickens, to the point that it starts offending his other tribe members. Nuku seems more determined to be eating those chickens than Gondol was, and when Tai suggest sacrificing more of their corn for the chickens, JT in particular freaks out. Tai doesn’t seem to push the issue too much, but he does seem to be an odd man out on this tribe.
We also get a tidbit where Nuku discusses names for the chicken. In particular, Brad wants to name one of them Monica. Ok, apart from me being a little freaked out that you would name an animal you want to KILL AND EAT after your wife, this does bring up that Brad is more than the one-dimensional character I have accused him of being. He is, in fact, two-dimensional. Here are those dimensions now:
Dimension 1: Sexist.
Dimension 2: In love with Monica.
Truly, the makings of “Survivor” greatness right there.
Since we haven’t yet had enough “spy bunker” to last us, we cut to tony, late at night, working on it. Once again, however, Troyzan nearly catches him out. Tony gets away just in time, but overhears him and Sandra talking. Tony’s name DOES come up, but it’s in the realm of “Tony’s strong, and we have to keep him around.” Normally, this would sound GOOD to a potential ally, but there are two things you have to remember. One: Tony is slightly deaf, as he also misheard things on “Survivor Cagayan”. Two: Tony is paranoid/impatient. In the case of the latter, he confronts Sandra aggressively, effectively ending his own game right then and there by alienating a necessary ally.
Amazingly, this leads Sandra to play a more proactive game, as she goes and rounds up Hali, Varner, Troyzan, and Michaela into an alliance against the meat-shields. It pleases me to see this side of Sandra this early, and while I feel like Sandra does kind of need the meat-shield alliance to help protect her, I can understand wanting to get rid of it after Tony’s behavior.
This second half of the episode has been just kind of “ok” so far in my opinion, but now it gives us the scene of the night at Nuku. Cirie, once again, recognizes the danger to her time in the game because of Ozzy, and sets out to gather allies. She first approaches Sarah. Sarah plays nice to her face, but says in confessional that she’d vote against Cirie. She next approaches Zeke. Zeke plays nice to her face, but says in confessional that he’d vote against Cirie. She next approaches Debbie. Debbie plays nice, but says in confessional that she’d vote against Cirie. Funny patterns like that can really make “Survivor” entertaining, and this is no exception. God bless Cirie, but her trying so hard and failing so miserably is just funny to me.
There IS another scene at Mana here, but it’s just Tony and Caleb rehashing the same points as before, so I feel no need to dwell on it. Instead, we get to our immunity challenge. While not great, it does seem marginally better than the one we had before. In teams of six, tribes will race out across a glance beam and into a cage to untie a giant snake from the ocean floor. Bringing back the 400-pound behemoth, the remaining three with untie parts of the snake to reveal numbers for a combination lock, releasing rings. These rings must then be tossed onto paddles, raising them to spell the word “immunity”, with the first tribe to spell it winning Captain Cuttler. There’s elements of challenges from “Survivor Gabon”, “Survivor Caramoan”, and “Survivor Kaoh Rong” here, but they’re minimal enough that I’d call it original. It’s not the most exciting thing ever, and I’ll admit the paddle part was a bit hokey, but overall I’d give it a thumbs-up.
There’s still a certain amount of mystery as to who will win, especially since the show takes great pains to show us Cirie being the sit-out for Nuku, but fortunately the challenge makes up for that. Nuku gets a MUCH bigger lead this time around, mainly due to the inexplicable decision of Mana to put Jeff Varner on the carrying portion, but Nuku chokes on the ring toss, to the point where Malcolm catches Mana up. If this comeback had worked, it would have rivaled Kass’ comeback on “Survivor Cagayan”.
Luckilly for Kass, her record stands. Malcolm chokes at the very end, earning the ire of Michaela for not switching out when she asked to try. Captain Cuttler stays with Nuku, and the bloodbath at Mana can begin. Whereas before it had been unclear as to who Tony and Caleb would try to swing to their side, with Michaela being so upset about this loss, it’s clear that she will be the one to swing. So, between keeping in the physical threats or sticking with the weaker underdogs, where should Michaela go? For me, the choice is clearly to stick with the underdogs, and that’s not just because we know a swap is coming, thereby rendering physical strength useless. Tony is a chaotic element, and while Sandra is dangerous if you let her get too far; better to go with the gameplay you can predict. Plus, while Michaela is definitely a challenge beast, she’s on the weaker end of that alliance. With the underdogs, she’s clearly needed in the pre-merge, but not as big of a target in the post-merge, due to the presence of people like Sandra. Better to stick with that plan.
Our negotiations are pretty standard, so let’s head off to a contradictory Tribal Council. I say contradictory because, on the one hand, it has a lot more stand-out moments than the first one. We have the bug in Sandra’s hair, the sudden declaration of love for Tony from pretty much all of the guys there, and, of course, Varner’s “Square Peg in a Round Hole” comment which freaks Tony out, leading to arguably the greatest Sandra zinger yet: “He means he hopes he ain’t the square peg.” We’ve also got more of a mystery to the vote, as logic dictates Tony leaving, while editing dictates a Sandra exit. On the other hand, when I think back to which Tribal Council had more impact, I think it was the first one. The only real logic I can find for all of this is that it felt like the first Tribal Council had more strategic buildup than this one, and that may have impacted enjoyment.
Logic prevails, and Tony goes home. Like with Ciera, while I have a lot of respect for him, I’m not overly sorry to see him go. We packed PLENTY of Tony into those first two episodes, and now we can move on to bigger and better things. And, of course, Tony goes out yelling and complaining. His and Sandra’s feud did live up to expectations.
It’s a bit hard for me to put my finger on my overall thoughts of this episode. It’s not going to be one of the overall great openings for a season, but it definitely satisfied, and is still a fairly strong start to the season. I think the main problem with it IS the buildup of the “Game Changers” title, and the whole “500th” episode thing. What we got, for any standard season, would be a strong start. But this episode was so built up, even getting the rare 2-hour time slot, that we can’t help but feel that it should have been an epic of massive proportions. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what we hoped. And as a two-hour episode, it just didn’t work for me. With an all-stars type season, you have a rare opportunity to give us two hours on one vote, just to give us a much time as possible with these “fan favorite” players. Instead, you go for cramming two episodes together, with all the pitfalls it entails. Not that the second half was bad, but again, I think the first half had the better moments overall, leaving the second part just feeling kind of lacking, particularly as a lot of it just rehashed the first part. Also, it feels like a wasted opportunity, since we know the tribes will be changed up the next episode. We didn’t have a chance to really get attached to this combination of people, and already we shake things up. Split them up, give us two episodes that stand better on their own than in comparison to one another, and give us more time with this combination of tribes before a shake-up.
For all my complaints, though, I still like the start of this season, and it definitely has potential. You may be expecting a “Top 5 and Bottom 5” here, and looking at the preview for next episode, I do have one in mind that I’ll probably do. However, I’m saving it, partly because I have to get up early tomorrow, and partly because I suspect the next episode will have one, and I hate doing two in a row.
Let’s hope for a fun ride!
-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.
idolspeculation 
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